


The Devil Falls

by Astoria Thalassa (astoria_thalassa)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ancient Egyptian Deities, Ancient Egyptian Literature & Mythology, Angel True Forms, Angel Wings, Angel-centric, Angelcest, Blasphemy, Canon-Typical Violence, Celtic Deities, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Christianity, Greek Deities, Greek Mythology & Folklore, Hindu Deities, Hindu Mythology & Folklore, Hinduism, Hopi Deities, Hopi Mythologi & Folklore, Judaism, M/M, Mythology References, Native American Deities, Native American Mythology & Folklore, Navajo Deities, Navajo Mythology & Folklore, Original Character(s), Pagan Gods, Paganism, Religious Themes, Shamanism, Sibling Incest, Vedic Mythology & Folklore, Vedic References
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-03 13:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 67,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8716069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astoria_thalassa/pseuds/Astoria%20Thalassa
Summary: In a post-modernist summary for an old-fashioned fic, the authoress would like to question Lucifer if it's a good idea to fall for an angel who's as stubborn as he is, and a human-lover, to boot. You could try to cajole Castiel into a relationship, Lucifer, but he will push back, and the end result will always be bittersweet.
   Whenever you see strange words or something brought up in the chapter, check chapter notes at the end of the chapter to see link to annotated version. Tags are subject to change as the fanfic goes on.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> De-anoning from **spnkink**.
> 
> [Prompt](http://spnkink-meme.livejournal.com/97375.html?thread=37741407#t37741407).
> 
> Edited for cleanliness.
> 
> The only beta is myself, so please do comment on grammar. I would be extremely grateful if someone would help me out, too! English isn’t my native language >w<
> 
> If you want to inquire more about my twisted state of mind, you can ask questions at my [tumblr](http://astoria-thalassa.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  **Originally published on:** 13/10/2016 (FFNet)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael casts out Lucifer. A glimpse into his thoughts through the millennia.

_Nothing to show for it_ , Michael thinks.

The rebellion is in its last throes, and the clash of battles echo through a lot of the possible dimensions. His Father has commanded him, and Michael obeys, for he has witnessed the torture of loneliness that will be the Cage that his Father has devised, and he shall be a good son. The demon hordes, newfangled creatures born out of Lucifer’s jealousy and bitterness, may be less powerful and more fragile than angels, but they are persistent and loyal, unconditionally so. Michael wonders if Lucifer’s arrogance has wandered so far into being self-delusion so as to hope to abate him and replace Father, for those wretched things call him exactly that—Father. They had even started to worship him.

Humans tend to worship everything remotely awe-inspiring. It had been fascinating as they had shaped the world around them with their beliefs and their souls, and imbibed life and being in even the most mundane of things. It was not so far-fetched that whatever was left of them after Lucifer had twisted them would worship something truly _breathtaking_. Demons do not burn when they behold angels, and any angel is superior and purer and more beautiful than all of them… But Lucifer is by far the most magnificent and brightest of _all_ of their brethren. This, Michael knows and accepts, and he had never really questioned why he was made the plainest of all the archangels.

The demons are just learning to twist more souls into more of their kind, and someday the process will run autonomously and efficiently as clockwork, with a well-developed hierarchy. But today the demons are a haphazard mass that barely know themselves and their own power; all the ways they are the opposite of angelkind, and all the ways they are _not_ the same. The battle turns. The demons are routed.

Michael sees his opening, and lunges for Lucifer. They yell many things at one another, but Michael twists one of Lucifer’s wings—beautiful walls of every colour, almost luminiscent by themselves—and makes the most of Lucifer‘s pained cry, and cuts off the limb that wields his sword. Michael is not overly concerned with its location, since he thinks it is best for the sword to be lost forever. He slashes at his brother, and then smites him, pushing through the clouds and the plains.

And so…

The Devil falls.

( _Michael then will look at young humanity, their numbers almost depleted thanks to Lucifer, and develop an intense dislike for them; primitive, blind, insensitive, favoured creatures that they are. He cast out his most beloved brother for them. He will be, however, the first to adopt each and every one of the titles humanity will devise for Lucifer as an example of sorts._

 _His brothers and he will still feel immeasurably lonely)_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won’t put my notes here because AO3 character limit is restrictive and some chapters have **lots and lots** of notes, but please check here in subsequent chapters for a link to FFNet, where all my chapter notes are. Also, this version is belated compared to the FFNet version because editing in AO3 is a pain in the arse, so when I update, the chapters will be on FFNet first because mistakes are way easier to correct over there. When I feel the chapters are ‘clean’, then, and **only then** the chapters will be uploaded. If you keep reading over at FFNet until the latest chapter, please do leave me a review, I have anon reviews enabled over there, too!
> 
> I hope you enjoy, and please review :)


	2. A Vagary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer summons Death, but things do not happen quite the same way we are used to. The butterfly has been released.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter rehashes a lot of canon. I ask for a modicum of your trust—things _will_ start to deviate wildly, don’t worry. I’ll be very impressed if you can spot where the change occurred (the narration clues you in).

It is said an instant makes all the difference, and that difference came into play in one out-of-focus moment of this apocalyptic story. Azazel’s daughter was before him, giving a succinct report with reverence in her eyes. As demons—or humans—went, she was rather comely even in her twisted true form, back in the days of Hell when twisting souls was an art instead of the mass-producing proccess it evolved into. Further proof of how humans corrupted everything.

‘And, lately, Castiel is seeking out and killing demons. Cannon fodder, though’.

He knew, thanks to his cohorts of demons, that the Winchesters had one of the Heavenly Host helping them out in their foolish attempt to stop the Apocalypse… The Apocalypse, the final battle he would win because his was the glory, and surely his Father would listen to he who once was the most favoured Son of God?

His decision to demand an answer or make a dismissal to that statement could have gone either way, due to the fact that the report from Azazel’s daughter made clear the actions of the rebel angel were insignificant. He made a gesture with his face, tilting his chin forward with a beatific look, to make her continue.

‘We think he’s looking for something. He’s interrogating a demon just now—another demon managed to contact me just earlier, but I bet that guy is dead already’.

‘You have a location?’, Lucifer asked absently, while he made his vessel turn to keep working on the sigils he painted.

‘I do’.

That surprised Lucifer. _Well, let’s go see this little one_.

‘Point the way, child’.

Her enthusiasm more than made up for her speed in traversing the planes, since running through them was slower than flying. They ended up in a decaying small town.

‘I don’t want to get close, Castiel has a… reputation for being perceptive’. She made a face Lucifer was sure it was some human gesture that conveyed annoyance. ‘Northeast’. She turned her head in the correct direction, and it was not precisely northeast, but it was close enough. Azazel’s daughter could not see Castiel because demons were not that far-seeing, however, she was smart enough to know that Lucifer could see far enough with his true sight; and see Castiel he did.

He turned his vessel’s head—although he did not have to, not really—and, due to his attentiveness, he had all the time in the world to take in the wings of the other angel—with much interest, to his surprise. Castiel’s wings shimmered under the timid light that entered through a hole in the roof of the abandoned warehouse Castiel had chosen to interrogate the demon in; the deep blue teal of the outer covert feathers—the shorter feathers that shielded the roots of the flight feathers—especially beautiful under the light, because it looked as if the feathers were dusted with silver. When Castiel was done with the demon, he killed it. The angle Castiel’s wings were visible from kept Lucifer from seeing much more, other than Lucifer managing to see that Castiel lightly flapped his wings to remove himself to a higher plane, and flew away leisurely. An impressive wingspan, as well.

 _Arrogant, aren’t we?_ , mused Lucifer at the nonchalance of Castiel, as if he was unafraid of being caught. _I wonder what the rest of his wings look like_.

Good-looking angels were about as frequent, relative to the Host, as good-looking humans, thus it was a very amusing twist of fate that Sam and Dean Winchester had landed, unbeknownst to them, an angel that, at least, had a fetching pair of wings—Castiel was too warded, and his true form too folded in his vessel, for Lucifer to know if Castiel’s true form measured up to what he had seen of Castiel’s wings. _All a cosmic joke, I’m sure_ , Lucifer thought, since he did not care much for how humans measured attractiveness, but he knew that his true vessel was attractive—as well as Michael’s, and Castiel’s. Of course, that would make his task of bringing humanity to its knees easier… Humans were so prone to trust a pretty face. Nevertheless, their physical appearance or fragile bodies paled to the looks of the true form or wings, or to the might, of the lowest of angels.

‘Speaking of futile’. His vessel scoffed.

Azazel’s daughter agreed enthusiastically.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

His Grace felt a shudder when the reaper entered the room he found himself in.

‘An angel is coming’.

The reaper went back to standing still. Lucifer did not fly; his shifting through the planes would alert the other angel to his presence. He wanted to surprise whom would surely be Castiel, the only angel he knew of that would dare to come looking for him. But it was easy to make his vessel’s steps tread without noise on the floor, as well as making it so that nothing creaked on his way. Lucifer was heavily warded, so he was unafraid of the angel detecting him through conventional methods. He simply waited in one of the rooms. He could hear Castiel’s vessel walking quietly, with caution, down the hallway. Castiel had folded his wings inside the vessel, Lucifer noticed with a vague sense of disappointment. At the precise moment, he extended fast a tendril of Grace that froze Castiel in place.

‘Hello, brother’, he greeted Castiel pleasantly even though he doubted Castiel heard him, and dragged him to the house’s basement. He dropped Castiel, who had brought his wings out with an impressive speed, on the ring of holy fire. Castiel pounded his wings once, twice, so that his vessel stood inside the ring with as much grace as humans could manage, instead of falling flat on its face. The vessel’s eyes darted around, its mouth parted, and Castiel made it turn its head to look, with an expression that probably was expressing alarm, at the holy fire; wondering, perchance, how a demon or a reaper got the drop on him. Barriers of holy fire dulled angel senses, so just as Castiel was forced to use paltry human senses to look around, the holy fire prevented Lucifer from being able to use his true sight on Castiel. _A shame_ , Lucifer thought absently. He had barely managed to look at Castiel’s wings in his haste to trap him.

Castiel had finally managed to locate him in the dark room.

LUCIFER, Castiel said, lowering his head slightly to watch him more intently. A pleasant true voice, level and without hesitation, rang in the room.

Lucifer started to prowl around the fire.

SO I TAKE IT YOU’RE HERE WITH THE WINCHESTERS, he stated simply, his vessel side-eyeing Castiel’s.

I CAME ALONE.

Lucifer flapped his wings slightly, incredulous. _That’s a very bad lie, little brother_.

LOYALTY. Lucifer stopped prowling, and turned his vessel‘s head slightly towards Castiel. SUCH A NICE QUALITY TO SEE IN THIS DAY AND AGE.

 _If I convince him to change sides_ … Demons were fine servants, but poor game pieces power-wise. _Castiel can stand humans._ On this observation, Lucifer based his pitch; so very expressive,  human. Revolting.

CASTIEL, RIGHT? He let something that could have sounded like doubt crept up in the strange mix that was his true voice and his vessel’s voice. Castiel made his vessel nod slightly. Then Lucifer made his vessel walk again, lowering its head slightly and made a hand point at the rebel angel, flapping it at the same time, like he had seen humans do when they struggled to remember something. _C ASTIEL_. As he made his vessel speak, Lucifer brought its hands together and looked at Castiel’s vessel. I’M TOLD YOU CAME HERE IN AN AUTOMOBILE. Lucifer lowered his vessel’s hands; he made them turn, experimentally.

By that point Castiel’s vessel was no longer looking at him, instead, its sight wandered about the room, making it look just like a caged animal.

 _If you could see_ _me_ _you wouldn’t be distracted. But I suppose it’s because you’re afraid_.

YES, Castiel answered simply.

WHAT WAS THAT LIKE? Lucifer could not help it when his vessel made a face of disgust as he inquired.

The gaze of Castiel’s vessel looked around some more, before turning back to him, nervously. Castiel let out a very human sound of hesitation.

SLOW. For some reason, Castiel made his vessel raise his eyebrows. Lucifer did not bother to remember what that meant. CONFINING.

 _Of course it was_ , Lucifer thought. _And you got inside voluntarily?_

WHAT A PECULIAR THING YOU ARE, Lucifer noted.

The gaze of Castiel’s vessel roamed about Lucifer’s vessel, very intently.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR VESSEL?

YES, and Lucifer lowered his vessel’s head again. It was a topic that annoyed him, but he wanted to play up to Castiel’s sympathies; thus Lucifer mimicked the same human sound of doubt that Castiel had let out earlier. NICK IS WEARING A BIT THIN, he made his vessel press its lips, I’M AFRAID. HE CAN’T CONTAIN ME FOREVER, SO—

YOU—, interrupted Castiel, his true voice mixing ever so strangely with the angry whisper generated by his vessel. He stepped forward, then glanced at the holy fire, and stopped short. YOU ARE NOT TAKING SAM WINCHESTER, Castiel stated. I WON’T LET YOU.

CASTIEL. Lucifer pressed his vessel’s lips, dissatisfied, and resumed prowling. I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU’RE FIGHTING ME, OF ALL THE ANGELS.

YOU REALLY HAVE TO ASK? As he said this, Castiel made his vessel turn to keep facing Lucifer’s.

I REBELLED, I WAS CAST OUT, Lucifer expressed while making his vessel emote an earnest tone of voice. YOU REBELLED, the palm of his vessel extended towards Castiel as if to point it out, YOU WERE CAST OUT. He lowered the hand. ALMOST ALL OF HEAVEN WANTS TO SEE ME DEAD, AND IF THEY SUCCEED, GUESS WHAT? Castiel made his vessel do something with its face that made it look as if he was watching Lucifer’s even more intently. _Good, he’s listening_. Y OU’RE THEIR NEW PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE. Indeed, the gaze of Castiel’s vessel had flickered downwards, thoughtful. WE’RE ON THE SAME SIDE, LIKE IT OR NOT, SO… Lucifer made his vessel shrug, along with an expressive, sad, face. WHY NOT JUST SERVE YOUR OWN BEST INTERESTS, he asked while he raised the eyebrows of the vessel, WHICH IN THIS CASE JUST HAPPEN TO BE MINE?

 _There it is_. The  doubt. Castiel had looked to the side, his vessel’s breath caught, a very human thing to do. While it disgusted Lucifer a little, it was to be expected since the holy fire trapped and diminished an angel inside its barrier.

I’LL DIE FIRST.

 _What a pity_.

I SUPPOSE YOU WILL, and, in his true voice, he sounded resigned. Lucifer did not enjoy killing his brethren. Curiously, that made Castiel will his vessel to flick his gaze downwards again.

Lucifer made its vessel lean against the wall, Castiel’s still looking at him intently. He brought one of its hands under the chin, as if he was watching Castiel speculatively. He did it purely because it seemed to unnerve Castiel he was paying so much attention to him. They stayed that way for a while, when Meg came in with a smile on her vessel’s face. She looked at Lucifer, adoring as always, and then looked at Castiel, and her smile adopted a nasty undertone reflected in the way her true form focused on Castiel for a while. Castiel’s vessel looked at the new arrival. The demon made her vessel put her hands together, speaking with meekness, levelly, about what had just happened.

‘I got the Winchesters pinned down now—for now, at least. What should I do with them?’

At this, Castiel’s vessel looked at Lucifer and narrowed his eyes just the tiniest bit.

 _Let’s throw a bone_. The finger under its vessel’s chin tapped the chin once.

‘Leave them alone’, he said in his vessel’s voice. Demons could stand angelic true voices, but it was painful for them, and it was quite unnecessary to bring Azazel’s daughter to that kind of pain, being as loyal as she was. Lucifer may not have cared for any of his demons, but he did care about their usefulness, and that was something significantly impeded if they were in constant pain.

The demon froze, her vessel’s face looked incredulous.

‘I’m sorry, but are you sure? Shouldn’t—’

‘Trust me, child’, he said as he made his vessel start to move towards her and cupped both cheeks of her vessel, ‘everything happens for a reason’. His wings enclosed the space around them, their colour the essence of the rainbow in each feather, and the demon inside looked at them around while her vessel smiled broadly, fascinated, as Azazel’s daughter saw the smile on his vessel’s face. Demons were so responsive to human body language.

Castiel’s vessel was still looking around, when he drew away from Azazel’s daughter.

‘Well, Castiel you have some time’, Lucifer said, turning his vessel’s head to look at the trapped angel. ‘Time to change your mind’.

To his disappointment, Castiel seemed to utterly ignore his last statement, while the rebel angel continued with whatever task he had set his mind to. Lucifer’s vessel looked at him some more. Lucifer gifted him with his undivided attention for a few more minutes, before he walked away from the stubborn angel.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Lucifer could have been more complacent with his victory while he summoned The Death since a couple of humans were not going to stop him at this point; instead, he choose to watch his true vessel closely, to learn more about him, with his true eyes. After all, this were the humans young Castiel with his pretty wings was risking his life for, and it made him wonder why. _Rebellion is all well and good but there’s a point when you’re in a fool’s errand_ , and Castiel seemed to have landed himself square at that point.

It was after the corpses littered the ground and the demons were destroyed that he felt something shift in the air—the lingering of a hopeful Grace. _How interesting_ , Lucifer thought, and how sweet and fresh it tasted to him. Had Lucifer not been paying attention to his true vessel, he would never have noticed Castiel. _He’s a threat_. The very thought galled him; the angel Castiel had managed to come without Lucifer noticing, not even making a disturbance when he parted the air to appear to the far side of Sam, whereas Lucifer himself had avoided flying earlier inside the house because he  knew he would be noticed when he landed. Castiel’s vessel looked at the Winchesters and grabbed them from the shoulders, but the rebel angel lowered his wards just to make a point of looking at Lucifer without fear with his true face, a moment before the angel yanked the Winchester two through time and space. Lucifer did not even bother to make his vessel look in that direction, although he and Castiel both knew he had been observing intently Castiel’s display. He was not surprised, but he would have been had he been more focused on his ritual than on his vessel, and Castiel had made it a point to throw it in his face.

 _Some of his arrogance is warranted_ , Lucifer conceded, remembering when Azazel’s daughter had taken him to see Castiel for the very first time. It seemed his little brother had, at least, the flying chops to match his eye-catching wings.

And what a pair they were. The Seraph Castiel—for Castiel was that, a six-winged young thing Lucifer had perceived as soon as Castiel had lowered his wards—had been blessed with quite a pair. The wards were still too strong for him to make out Castiel’s true form, but even if Castiel had an average-looking true form, the wings were impressive enough to make of the seraph a looker. And he still did not get to see Castiel’s wings completely. When Castiel had surrounded the Winchesters with his wings, the better to fly away with the humans, he had seen the colour of the long flight feathers—primaries—further away from Castiel’s form. The feathers were what humans called the purple of kings; and to Lucifer they had looked like long, thin flower petals sprinkled with dew due to their perpetual shimmer. They were set under a night sky, the deep blue teal of the outer coverts he had already seen made that day’s starless night pale in comparison to the starry night sky the coverts bore. The tips of Castiel’s flight feathers were of dark space, the blackest black, with a host of constellations swimming in in it.

But now Castiel was gone. He had no idea how the seraph had escaped his trap, and he was busy.

A chasm opened, distorting the boundary between the earthly dimension and one of the upper ones. The chasm pulsed angrily between the planes, oozing the very emptiness of outer spaces, in the places where there no planets nor gas, not even dark matter. Lucifer made his vessel walk forward, until he stood at a close distance. That emptiness coalesced, and The Death touched ground. The grass withered, the protozoa and arthropods under it were left immobile and dead.

HELLO, DEATH.

IMPUDENT CHILD.

COME ON, IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME. He dropped his warding completely, so The Death could see how affable he felt. Lucifer was not sure The Death could perceive angelic Graces as angels could in order to perceive their siblings’ emotions, but he was one of the oldest creatures in the universe, so he figured trying could not hurt.

I’M ABSOLUTELY _THRILLED_ TO BE PART OF YOUR LITTLE CHARADE. I  ALSO APPRECIATE THE BINDING. NOT.

IT HAD TO HAPPEN THIS WAY.

Lucifer remembered very well, raging his orders as he was cast down and looking at God’s design and wondering what it would take for his Father to listen to him.

BECAUSE WE KNOW YOU’RE SUCH AN OBEDIENT SON.

DEATH—

YES, IT’S COMPLICATED. GO ON. YOU MUST WANT SOMETHING.

Lucifer’s wings extended slightly, trembling with anger. Even if he, at the moment, had complete control over The Death, he did not feel like needlessly antagonising it.

YOU’LL NEED A VESSEL FIRST. I THOUGHT YOU’D LIKE TO PICK YOURS PERSONALLY.

HOW KIND OF YOU.

YOU HAVE TWO DAYS. I’LL SUMMON YOU.

YES, YES. IN A HURRY, AREN’T WE?

The Death disappeared as if the wind took him. _That’s the best I’ll get from him_ , Lucifer told himself, but that did not assuage his anger. He put up his wards again. Then, he started flying back to his trap to see how Castiel had gotten out. He was at the house, when he perceived the presence of Azazel’s daughter in pain, hunched over the sofa of the living room.

 _Interesting_.

He landed in front of her. His vessel sported a stern face while it looked at her. She started raising her head, it trembled.

WHAT HAPPENED?

He enjoyed when she flinched, clutching her stomach. There was a feeling lingering in that area, the vessel of Azazel’s daughter had a very nasty burn on it as well as on her true form. It would heal, of course. She was hardier than all of the demons currently alive—a shame she was not as powerful as Azazel or Lilith.

‘I’m sorry’, he made his vessel brush her forehead deliberately. ‘I didn’t see you were hurt’.

‘It’s alright. Don’t worry’.

 _As if_.

She dutifully relayed everything that happened.

‘That was unexpected’, Lucifer said. ‘Did you know they shot me?’

‘They should’ve known that wouldn’t work. No, wait; the Colt—Crowley, of course’. There was a quiet anger in her voice, as she narrowed her eyes and her body shook.

‘It can’t kill me’, he said, with a tone of voice he hoped conveyed how absolutely unconcerned he was about the whole thing. He preferred keeping his secrets to himself, so he was sure not even she knew that.

‘But that raises a question: How did Castiel locate Crowley? He was targetting low-level demons. I would have noticed an info leak in the ranks’.

‘It’s a very good question’, Lucifer concurred.

That the Michaelsword and his true vessel had an ever-diminishing amount of allies was the only information he would ever want or need, however, that the Michaelsword and his vessel had an extremely resourceful angelic ally was useful information entirely unwelcomed. _Good thing I decided to go look for him when she told me_ , he reflected, since he now knew he had to be wary of the rebel seraph. _Castiel_ , he decided, _is dangerous_. Lucifer dismissed Azazel’s daughter so she could carry out his plans.

Lucifer pondered Castiel some more.

Having an angelic ally amidst all the demons, which he found more repelling than humans, would have been quite a boon to him. He was old, very old, so he supposed having someone young with nice wings to look at by his side would not hurt; but he wondered more carefully if, with the adequate resources and persuasion, Castiel could be sufficiently devious to be of any use to him in winning his millenia-old war.

_I wonder if I can convince him to change sides?_


	3. Abydonian War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel says goodbye to Ellen and Jo, then he finds a lead on the search for God, and has a near-death encounter along the way.

Escaping the demon that called herself Meg had taken him longer than Castiel had intended. He took flight, steering clear of the place where the demonic presence lingered. Castiel could not feel Lucifer, but he could see Lucifer’s vessel; just as he could feel in the air, and in the rumbling of the earth, the unleashing of a powerful force that made his Grace shudder—Death, he knew, for he understood the Enochian recited by the Lightbringer.

 _Lucifer is still alive_ , Castiel thought disappointed, when he confirmed his suspicions. _But he can’t kill Sam yet_. _Sam and Dean must be close_. Castiel dove to his side, circling the farm’s grounds in an ever-narrowing path. Indeed, the Winchesters were close, so Castiel veered as best as he could and then hovered in the air slightly. That Sam and Dean were still alive fanned his hopes yet. It was a precise maneuver; rather than forcing his presence in the mortal plane, as all angels did, when his wings were going forwards in a single flap, he used his wingpoints to  slide smoothly into the plane. Maybe because of their bond, Dean was the first to turn his head to him, and Sam followed almost automatically, making it look as if they had done so almost at the same time. Castiel brought his vessel’s hand to its lips, a human sign he knew that in a lot of places meant ‘silence’, then decreased the sound around himself to nothing as his vessel walked to Sam and Dean. His Grace lingered in the air from using it. The Grace was only a trace amount, and it should not have been noticed by Lucifer.

Lucifer, it seemed, was paying more attention than Castiel would have thought, for his true face turned to face Castiel. Castiel was confident Lucifer was rooted to his spot, lest Death get away, so he could flee with Sam and Dean. So very few things had been going well for them that Castiel decided to engage in a bit of feel-good needling. _Another archangel mad at me doesn’t make much difference_. Castiel lowered his wards as he encompassed Sam and Dean in his wings—Castiel’s vessel looked at them reassuringly—and his true face looked at Lucifer. Castiel was already on the hit list of all of Heaven and all of Hell, what was one more? He would never join Lucifer, after all. Lucifer may have offered partnership, but Castiel knew that it would end up in defeat just like his first rebellion, because Castiel had faith in his Father and in His love for all of His creatures. Then he flew to the edges of town, to the automobile Dean had such a fascination for.

‘Good save’, said Dean. Castiel’s vessel turned his head slightly towards him, but he was looking at him intently with his true eyes. Dean seemed unsettled.

‘Yeah, thanks’, agreed Sam.

Castiel dipped his vessel’s head in acknowledgement, but he had more questions.

‘Jo and Ellen Harvelle?’

The Winchesters contorted their faces in what must have been grief, going by the pang in Dean’s soul.

‘They didn’t make it’, stated Dean.

Castiel was becoming more and more entrenched in his vessel the lesser he became, so it was almost instinctive when his vessel pursed his lips and looked to the side. His wings dropped in sorrow, but the voice he let out when he next spoke had an undertone of raggedness that seemed to strike Dean awake.

‘ _Where_?’

‘What?’, asked Sam.

‘No, no, buddy. You’re not going back. No more crazy for today’.

‘I asked where, Dean’, his vessel let out testily.

‘Cas, can’t you see? That’s mad! We need to leave’, pled Sam.

Castiel strode up to them. They were both taller than his vessel, but it was of no consequence—humans, even with the limited senses they had, could perceive his presence just fine on a subconscious level. He flared his wings, and Dean was taken aback, suddenly looking at him with wide open eyes, while Sam shrunk back.

 _Good_. _They should remember once in a while what I am_.

‘You’re… correct’, he said. ‘We’re running out of the time. So you’ll be going to Bobby’s, but not before you tell me where Jo and Ellen died’.

‘Dammit, Cas, you can’t die too!’

‘You seem to forget I still have more means of escape than you do’. He made his vessel flick its sight between the two of them, in a look he hoped conveyed his expectance, while he tilted the head. ‘Clock’s ticking’.

Dean huffed. Sam tilted his head back and ran a hand through his hair. Then they eyed each other. Whatever conversation they held through their brotherly bond, Dean seemed to have lost. Dean pursed his lips, and spoke:

‘You’re crazy. You’re actually goddamn crazy. _Fine_. Just look for the one crater in town, should be easy’.

‘It’s all I need’.

Castiel nodded at the Winchesters in a goodbye of sorts, and flew again, this time to the hardware store where the Harvelles died. Or former hardware store, as it were. The lingering evil told Castiel hellhounds had been afoot, although none seemed to have survived the dispersed salt and iron and steel nails strewn across the charred remains of the store. He again smoothly entered in the mortal plane, and started walking quietly after folding his wings inside his vessel for greater stealth. In front of him there was charred organic matter in a disorganised array—what he could piece of the genome told him they were from Ellen and Jo, and what a surprise to Castiel it was he could still see at that level. _Not for long_ , Castiel thought. Castiel got close to the bodies. The fact of who those bodies belonged to moved him, but not much more.

His wings sagged.

He turned his vessel’s head to what was left of the back of the store, where there were still structures standing and more complex machinery lying about. It was not the remains at his feet what saddened him, no; what made him sorrowful was this: seeing Jo’s soul trudge from there, the burns all over her and her clothes torn. _So young_ , lamented Castiel, well aware through Dean’s prayer-rants that this is not what Ellen had wanted for her daughter.

JO.

He realised his mistake instantly.

Jo looked up shaken; more clatter could be heard from the back.

‘What the—Cas?’

‘I—’. Unwanted hesitation crept up in his vessel’s vocal chords. ‘Hello’.

‘What’s going on in there?’ Ellen stepped from the back as well, and looked at him amazed. ‘Hey’.

‘Ellen’, Castiel nodded at her.

‘You came back. You’re alive! Oh, thank God’, said Jo. ‘Can you, uh…’ She gestured all over herself.

‘I don’t have that kind of power anymore’.

‘I see…’

Jo pressed her fist to her face. She seemed to have problems controlling her breathing and squinted her eyes.

‘What was that sound?’, cut in Ellen, trying to change topics while she rubbed Jo’s shoulder. Jo took in one breath, two, blinked twice and looked at Castiel.

‘Yeah, it sounded…’ She flapped her hands about in the air as if Castiel was supposed to understand that. Castiel understood enough, however, to know that this was not the moment to ask for an explanation regarding her hand gestures.

‘Which sound?’

‘You’ve got to have heard that’, Jo, protested. ‘ _Something_ said my name and then you were there, just standing in front of me’.

‘That’s my true voice’.

‘Oh…’, breathed Jo.

‘Is that what all angels sound like?’

‘We each have our own voices, like you do. But yes’.

‘It was…’

Castiel waited patiently, but the grieving mother struggled with her words.

‘Unsettling?’, he offered.

‘No…’ Jo shook her head vehemently. ‘No, it was beautiful’. She looked at him with a very particular gaze. ‘You sound like windchimes’.

‘It sounded like… _grief_ ’.

When Ellen said that, both Harvelles looked at him and it was almost like their edges had softened all over, both making a weird face with their mouths that had a meaning that escaped Castiel. But they felt both glad and surprised; their souls acquired such intensity to them that it left Castiel ashamed at his uselessness so much that he had to avert both his vessel’s gaze and his true sight.

‘I’m sorry’.

‘No, no’, Ellen said. Jo crossed her arms, looking at Castiel. ‘You don’t get to say sorry. We knew the consequences, alright, angel?’ She turned his vessel’s chin with one hand and then cupped its cheeks so its gaze bore directly into her honeyed eyes. ‘Now you go help those boys stop it all, you hear me?’

‘Of co—’

‘Mom, you grabbed him!’

‘Oh’. She lowered her hands and looked at them in wonder. ‘We keep going through everything. Well, you know’, she shook her head with something like a bitter smile on her face, making her hair flair a little, ‘mostly. Lots of salt around here. Why can I touch you?’

Castiel willed his vessel to look to the side, then walked for a bit in a thoughtful expression, looking for a suitable explanation he could use that he knew they would understand instead of the all-too-human and maddening obscure references Dean seemed to be fond of when explaining things to Castiel.

‘Now there are oxygen tanks and submarines to go under the sea, but a single fish can’t go inland. I’d be a perfect amphibian, in this case, capable of being in either environment, but more attuned to water. You have become fish’.

‘Right!’ Jo rolled her eyes. ‘So what’d be the submarines?’

‘Spells. Mediums’.

‘But sometimes we can see ghosts, right? And ghosts can do all sorts of stuff’.

There was something in the way Jo said it that Castiel knew that Jo Harvelle was thinking of something foolish and human, probably. He decided to explain further.

‘Fish can jump above the water. It takes effort’.

‘So’, she said brightly, ‘we still can help De—!’

‘That’s unwise’, snapped Castiel.

‘What? So we just sit here on our asses and do nothing?’, demanded Jo.

‘Honey, please’. Ellen turned to Castiel. ‘Why?’

‘Ellen, Jo. Ghosts are… Not entirely conscious of who they are, and very rarely can they move places. I know both of yours wouldn’t be able to’. _Not after your kind of death_. Both his gazes looked at the Harvelles in a way that made their postures rigid, trying to convey how important this point was. ‘A reaper will be here for you soon, since there are so many around here. You better say yes to any of them, to free you from Earth’.

Castiel neglected to tell them that there was something they could still do; function as his own personal battery. However, they had already suffered so much for this war, and he was so ashamed of himself for not being able to help them, that he felt it was best if they could go on to Heaven to rest.

‘You want us to go with those creeps?’

‘Jo, I understand your reservations since reapers can be…’

‘Unsettling?’, offered Ellen with a wry smile.

‘Unsettling’, Castiel echoed with a slight smile in his vessel’s lips, ‘to humans. But it’s their job to ferry souls to Heaven and Hell’.

‘And what if they decide to hand us over to Lucifer? Or a hellhound gets to us first? What about that?’, demanded Ellen.

‘That’s not how it works’.

‘Then, how does it work?’, asked Jo.

What Castiel knew about the workings of the afterlife would not fit in all the books and in all the digital storage of the entire town. What he did not know about the workings of the afterlife was impossible to measure for certain.

_How to explain?_

‘Hellhounds can hurt you’, he conceded—much to their consternation, ‘but they can’t drag you to Hell; only the damned go to Hell. And now you can hurt them right back with your bare hands’.

‘Yeah, how?’

‘You’re _souls_. Just will it. You can still exorcise demons because you’re still you’.

‘Really?’

‘Yes’.

‘Mighty practical. You came back to tell us this?’, Ellen said.

 _I came here to see you one last time_.

‘To an extent’.

‘Well, thanks a bunch’, she spat.

Castiel’s Grace fluttered inside his vessel.

‘Mom!’

‘I know, baby. I’m sorry, it’s just…’

‘I understand’.

He did not, not really; however, that was what humans said in those situations. Because those were the words that brought a small smile to Ellen’s face, they were probably the right ones to say.

‘And now we’re back to the waiting game’.

A strange bark of laughter came out of Jo’s throat.

‘This sucks. I don’t want to see another hellhound. This—crap’.

‘Oh, honey’, sighed Ellen sadly.

Castiel looked at the surroundings. They were still shaken by the manner of their deaths.

‘I could ward the place against demons and hellhounds’, he offered.

‘Really?’

His vessel nodded.

‘Do it’, said Ellen decisively.

His true sight instantly located, on the far side of the store, several cans of spray paint lying in the debris, so Castiel grabbed one and set to work. He started by spraying the walls of the back of the building and moved methodically, spraying the side of the neighbouring store, and so on. Jo and Ellen looked at him, fidgeting in the silence, at least until Jo blurted out: ‘Could you say anything with your true voice?’

His vessel froze. The request was strange.

‘Sorry’, Jo averted her eyes.

‘No, uh…’ His vessel inclined his face, in hesitation.

‘It‘s okay’.

 _It’s the least I can do_.

‘Um…’. The heartbeat of Castiel’s vessel increased without him willing it to do so. He brought it back down to a steady rhythm, but it was yet another reminder of how tied he was becoming to James Novak’s body and how much lesser he was becoming… Then he had his words:

I WISH I COULD TAKE YOU TO HEAVEN.

Jo watched him, enraptured, while Ellen let out a steady breath before she spoke. Castiel was almost finished with the floor.

‘You can do that?’

EVEN NOW. BUT IT’S RISKY. HEAVEN IS ENEMY TERRITORY RIGHT NOW.

‘But…’ Then Jo continued with a small voice: ‘But we’re enemies, right? Of the angels. Can we even get there? Can’t they ban us or kick us out?’

OF COURSE NOT. WE DON’T SORT THE SOULS. YOU’LL GET THERE, he assured them.

His vessel looked at both souls significantly. He threw to the side the spray paint can since he was done.

‘What is Heaven like?’

IT DEPENDS ON THE SOUL.

He willed his vessel gaze at them for one final time. Ellen and Jo had pursed their lips at the non-specific answer. Unfortunately, that was the truth.

I HOPE WE SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN.

 **Let them rest in peace, Father**.

‘Not too soon, you hear me!’

Ellen laughed at Jo’s comment.

Castiel nodded at them and flew away. He did not had the will to tell them there was not an afterlife for angels.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

After a quick call to Dean when he landed at the edges of the town to assure him he was alive, he continued flying. Dean did not question what Castiel had gone on to do over at the hardware store, and Castiel would spare him the account of what had transpired with Ellen and Jo Harvelle. There he stood in the flatlands of the messy urban sprawl of Joplin, Carthage still in his sight even with all the buildings standing in between. Castiel did not want to be near the town of Carthage, but he did not want to be too far away for the time being, either, because he wanted to see if he could gather any useful information. His avenues of search for God had dried up at the moment, but he had to have faith he would stumble across something eventually.

Unfortunately, he was not the only one staking the town. A pair of matte wings of green and beige Castiel did not recognise dove at him. It was a close call. Castiel took to the air, which usually favoured him more than many of his siblings, extending fully his wings to steady his flight. Castiel looked at his brother. He felt annoyance that his brother gazed at his wings so intently.

WERE YOU AWARE YOU ARE KILL-ON-SIGHT, CASTIEL?

I IMAGINED.

Castiel turned to leave him behind, only to hear, to his consternation, how his brother started to pursue him. _Things just had to get worse_. Castiel was fast, but scouts usually were fast, too, so he was not too thrilled by having to make a flight for his life. His brother was gaining distance on him, and then swatted Castiel with one of his other wings. Castiel cried out—it was painful, and it would have burnt him were he a malach still, but seraphim burnt hotter than that. Therefore, it did not damage him. Instead of trying to force himself to go in a certain direction, however, he veered further in the direction he had been swatted, because, with that, he gained vital distance on the other angel. With one of his eyes he looked back and saw, horrified, that his brother had taken out his sword. Castiel made sure they flew across the empty seas, desolated deserts and tempestuous mountain ranges, because apocalyptic activity was concentrated in populated areas, and he did not want his brother to get reinforcements.

Just when his brother had reached him, Castiel twisted, and parried the limb that had the sword with one of his other wings. His brother was left agape, not expecting more than two wings to fight against. His brother’s bitter surprise coloured the air. _So Heaven still thinks I’m a malach_. _Good_. Castiel lunged downwards at him, bringing his ever-diminishing Grace to the fore without spending it, and whacked the other angel him with two extra wings. His brother cried in pain because of the burns to his Grace, to his vessel and to his true form—from when his wings parried Castiel’s. They went past the sea, and kept falling, fighting.

What the two angels did as they fell through the planes towards the centre of the Earth was not an elegant and graceful fight, or a long-choreographed marvel. It was the ruthless execution of a beloved sibling, as Castiel tried to keep Heaven from knowing information that could get him killed. His brother’s Grace extinguished in a cry of pain, after Castiel managed to gut him with a swipe.

 **Father, forgive me**.

ZURIEL, Castiel named him with sorrow. He did not know Zuriel personally and that was why he did not recognise his wings, but he knew Zuriel’s Grace: he had been a member of another garrison under Michael. Castiel ascended then, slowly, not paying attention to how the vessel of his brother materialised into the mortal plane and was instantly ground up into a mangled, charred mess by the hot rocks that surrounded them. Castiel was still immaterial, so nothing happened to him or his vessel.

He considered on which part of the Earth’s crust to appear as he ascended sedately.

He felt safer in sparsely populated areas, so he emerged in the Upper Nile, and waded through the water until he touched shore. There was a Nubian fishing village nearby, with its small buildings painted in white wash. Kids played in the distance, while old cars went up and down the barely-defined roads. It was almost night here, so Castiel was sure nobody had seen him come out of the water. Still, he enjoyed the sounds of children playing—always had—because they were an expression of joyous humanity Castiel enjoyed very much. He decided to go through the town, while he walked in another plane to go unseen.

‘Mister’, a girl whispered to him, with apprehension. She stood at his side.

 _What a strange soul_ , Castiel thought. Her soul looked as if it could detach itself from the girl’s body at any moment. He had noticed Asmina, but he had not known the girl was a budding medium until she spoke to him… His senses were becoming that dull.

The almost-pubescent girl looked at Castiel directly.

‘Are you going downriver, too?’

‘What is there downriver?’

She squinted her eyes at him, and then widened them a lot.

‘I don’t know’.

She looked frightened. _She_ _can_ _see_ _I’m not human_. Some very sensitive mediums, like the late Pamela, could perceive the true intentions of a being when they made contact with their essence. _Let’s see if you can see inside my Grace, too_. Castiel brushed her velvety cheek with his hand, warmed by Grace, while she was paralised with fear. The gesture conveyed to her soul that Castiel meant no harm. She closed her dark eyes with a dreamy face—whatever sensation Castiel’s Grace had given her must have been nice.

‘Other people have washed ashore, you know, Mister. But you’re the first one dressed like a fussy tourist in mid-winter’.

The comment amused him, since it was fall.

‘I don’t think you’re a tourist, though. You speak Mahas just like me! Even if you do look like an Arab’.

‘I’m a traveller of sorts. Tell me, Asmina, what do you know about the people who come out of the Nile?’, Castiel prompted.

‘You know my name!’

‘Of course, Asmina Prahimi Kesshi’.

Castiel started walking, and motioned for the little girl to follow him. She did so, skipping in her every step.

‘The Nubians who wash ashore are different from us! They have strange clothes, and they keep saying they will drive off the twisted ones’.

‘Can all people see them?’

‘I don’t know. I wait for them alone. There haven’t been many lately’.

He stopped at a door.

‘This is your house’.

It was not a question, and Asmina knew that. She opened her eyes a lot, amazed.

‘You know everything, Mister!’

‘I don’t. But I know you should go inside today, it’s getting dark’.

‘Oh. Can you play with me?’

‘That’s unadvisable’.

‘It wouldn’t if you talked to my parents!’

‘Your parents can’t see me right now’.

Asmina pouted. She insisted, but Castiel would not budge, so she quieted down for a while.

Then Castiel spoke again.

‘Asmina’.

‘Yes?’

‘Please don’t talk to people nobody else can see. Right now, it’s dangerous business’.

‘Even if you come again, Mister?’

‘Even then’.

Castiel opened his vessel’s wallet, since money was of no use to him. Castiel pressed ten dollars in Asmina’s hand, who was not expecting him to give her anything in return and had told him everything he needed out of the trust Castiel had elicited in her. Still, he did not know if her people still remembered, but hers were a trading people, and it was ancient custom to always offer something just, should you be able to, in exchange for a favour from a stranger. Always bartering. Castiel did not think Asmina’s parents would have much problem exchanging the dollar bill; he had been paying enough attention to current human affairs to know that Dean and Sam’s country, the United States, was—among other things—an economic powerhouse, and its currency was very esteemed as had once been Roman talents in the days of the Roman Empire or Tyrian coinage in Alexander’s heyday or kakaw seeds in the old days of Mayan hegemony.

‘Whoah. It looks like money’.

‘It is money. Your parents will know what to do with it. Be careful, Asmina’.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

 _Demons_ , Castiel thought angrily when he saw the impure things milling about in the once city, both in bodies and as the wispy remains of their true form. For lack of other leads, and obvious supernatural origin, he had followed Asmina’s information to go downriver. He had flown at an easy pace to get there. It was disturbing. There were human corpses everywhere; he did not dare get closer yet to find out what was happening. He waited. He waited until the waning moon was covered by some stray clouds to slip into the city, hiding in the Coptic convent at the very edges of the archaelogical site.

The convent still had a lingering holiness to it, even after all these centuries of lack of use. It had been infused with care into the paintings of the murals, whose pigments, Castiel remembered, had been prepared with holy water and sacred oils. _Abdju feels… angry_. He did not like that feeling. He watched further; there were some demons patrolling. But they seemed distracted. _Whatever they wanted, they got it already_. He slid down here carefully, with his wings out to glide as quietly as possible. His wings were too brilliant, but given that the demons were not paying too much attention, Castiel supposed he could risk visibility for quiet. More demonic whispers; Castiel ducked.

Sliding along the old ruins of what the people of Khemet had called Abdju, he went in the direction of the old temple to Waser. The columns made him apprehensive; it was an opportunity for demons to jump at him. In front of him was one of the weird human corpses. Castiel’s vessel crouched, and moved to examine the corpse quietly, turning its arms and legs until Castiel found under its robes a tattoo of power; a basket over a house. His vessel touched the tattoo; when it did so, he felt as if his vessel was plunged into the sea.

 _Nebet-het?_ This was an old goddess, the sea goddess that was known under a myriad names, and who had seen so many things in the course of her long life on Earth. The basket over a house was her symbol among the people of Khemet, and Nebet-het was what she had styled herself as in the time she lived here. _Then, I should go to Sutah’s temple_ , since that had been where she had been worshipped as well. The heart of Castiel’s vessel pounded with force, because that meant going across the city, full of demons, for a lead. He did not like this. His wings collapsed into his vessel. They were too shiny.

 _She might know of Father_ , Castiel reasoned. **Asmina, thank you** , Castiel prayed. Humans could not hear prayers, but angels prayed to God, to each other, and received prayers in return. It was an habit too ingrained to abandon.

Between the uncomfortable sensations the demons in the city gave him, along with his vessel’s pounding heart, the more sinister the city felt the further he made his way in with trepidation. There were Enochian sigils scrabbled all over what looked like a perimeter, as a boundary. Castiel could not inspect the whole boundary to see what they could mean. Tentatively, he extended one of his vessel’s hands over a sigil. Castiel felt as fine as he could be, considering his present circumstances.

 _At least it doesn’t suppress my power_.

He crossed the boundary. It did not take too long for Castiel to find out that had been a **very bad** idea. He threw his vessel behind some decaying and ancient rock wall. One demon, immaterial and wispy, turned to examine the sigils further to his right, and turned, frantically.

‘Angel!’, it screeched.

He had to clamp down on his instinct to spread his wings and flee, since finding God was much too important. He had every confidence that his warding made him nigh-undetectable, but that advantage ended with direct visual contact since the wards could not render him invisible.

 _I need to move away from this point_.

But there was too much open space between ruins and demons could see better than nocturnal animals in the night. Something caused the demons to become even more frantic. Voices could be heard in the city, and some activity started up. A human scream rang in the air.

 _I need to go_.

Castiel’s true sight darted around, and then his vessel jumped behind a stone and knifed the demon that was hidden there to make it go silent, permanently. It always gave off a spike of energy, but, with the demons distracted, Castiel hoped the energy in the air would not give him away.

‘What do we have here?’

Castiel turned around, his wings flaring.

‘Lucifer’.

‘Hello, Castiel’, he responded affably.

So The Morningstar was what had sent the demons into a frenzy.

Castiel’s blade instantly slid into his vessel’s dominant hand.

‘No need to be like that’. Lucifer made a point of retracting his— _beautiful, breathtaking…_ —pair of wings into his vessel. ‘I think it’s time for a friendly chat’.

Castiel, instead, gave one step backwards.

‘So dour, brother’.

Lucifer dimmed his self and clamped down on his Grace. Then he clasped his vessel’s hands behind his back.

‘I don’t want to hurt you’.

‘What do you want?’

Castiel’s wings returned to a more resting position, and the vessel’s back straightened. Nonetheless, his blade stayed in the vessel’s hand. _How did you find m_ e?, Castiel worried—but did not ask.

‘You like what I’ve done with the place? War was summoned here’.

 _So that’s the reason the city feels dark and angry. Wrathful_.

Lucifer’s vessel looked relaxed, decaying, and Castiel was not in a mood to be toyed with.

‘Get to the point’.

It was hardly a good idea to be so aggressive towards Lucifer, but Lucifer’s very presence endangered Castiel, so he cared very little if Lucifer was offended by his tone of voice. He suspected that Lucifer regarded him as being so insignificant—and he was, compared to an archangel—that he could not be bothered to feel slighted by a waning seraph.

‘Now, I believe I made you a job offer’. Lucifer’s vessel smiled placidly.

‘ **Never** ’.

‘Really?’ Lucifer’s vessel shook its head, still with the smile. ‘Not even if I told you, you would be able to keep a bunch of humans to your liking?’

The offer was tempting, very tempting. His vessel’s gaze flickered downwards, and Castiel loathed himself in that moment for even considering it.

 _This is what_ _you_ _do, corrupt and tempt_.

‘Never. Ellen and Jo Harvelle are already dead’.

 _And Sam is out of the question, I’m sure_.

‘Too bad. And I could use someone like you, for once’.

To Castiel’s astonishment, Lucifer actually sounded a bit disappointed. Castiel’s wings trembled.

‘You don’t mean that’, Castiel blurted out.

‘Unlike my siblings, I don’t see why I should lie, Castiel’.

‘We’ll see about that’.

‘Yes, we will. Because’, Lucifer’s vessel—hands still clasped behind its back—started to walk towards Castiel, ‘you can’t avoid everyone forever’.

The presence of Lucifer’s Grace invaded the air; it tasted of smugness, satisfaction, and echoed of confidence in such a way that could be said to be addictive. Castiel felt like prey while he stumbled backwards, to get his vessel away from Lucifer’s.

‘Then, since no one can help you, you’ll become more and more desperate. Really, a pity’.

‘You wish’.

Castiel flared his wings wider, in pure anger. He felt Lucifer’s true gaze roaming over them with such attentiveness, he felt like using them to shield himself from the archangel, and grab a shroud to cover them. But, instead of shielding himself like a coward, he extended his immense wings even more. He knew it did not work on Lucifer, archangel that he was, but lesser angels would have been appropriately cowed by their size and the way his wings loomed over.

Interest blossomed in the air directly from Lucifer’s Grace. Castiel’s Grace shuddered.

‘That’s what you say. But, as you become more desperate, I will find you again, and again’. Lucifer’s vessel tilted its head forwards, as if he were a human dismissing him. ‘And you’ll either say yes to my offer or… If the demon hordes kill you along the way… Well, Castiel’, and Lucifer’s vessel had the gall to look truly sorry as Lucifer said this, ‘that’s hardly my fault’.

As he finished his sentence, he extended his arms, still with his Grace subdued and no wings out.

‘Get him, boys!’

The delighted shrieks of demons filled Castiel’s surroundings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to know what is Abdju, some background myth information, and get an idea of my thought process, then you should look at the chapter notes at the end of the text [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12188821/3/The-Devil-Falls).
> 
> The title is a Stargate reference because it gives me childhood fuzzies.


	4. Hunger Anew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucifer does not like what Castiel is up to, but he eventually figures it is a harmless flight of fancy from his little brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings : Lucifer being Lucifer, disturbing imagery, gore**.

Lucifer stretched his vessel’s neck and enjoyed the wind. Most of the time, Lucifer refused to be entwined with its limited human senses, but this time he was revelling in his Father’s creation, in the dry winds atop this red sandstone formation. The one good idea the humans had was to make the surrounding area a ‘park’ of some sort, leaving its beauty untouched. Uluru, the name the local humans had given the rock so long ago, did not have any particular meaning, which was why it was a human name Lucifer actually liked. _And then the humans renamed it after some idiot. No sense of poetry at all._ Ayers Rock was overly simplistic, and the sheer presumptuousness of humanity offended Lucifer.

Azazel’s daughter climbed swiftly the side of Uluru. He arranged his vessel’s face until he sported an expression of something humans would call ‘polite interest’. Nonetheless, Lucifer simmered like a winter blizzard inside his Grace, because of the spunk of Azazel’s daughter to besmirch this sacred place. The demon clawed the planes and landed neatly into the mortal plane, the edges of her true form slightly frazzled. It seemed not even a demon as sturdy as she could withstand completely the presence of a holy place.

Azazel’s daughter closed her eyes and dipped her head slightly.

‘An angel has shown up’, she said softly.

‘Well, then, kill them’.

Lucifer hated to kill his brethren, but this was a war. It was hard to feel _too_ remorseful when Lucifer knew they would be just as fine killing him back, had they the capacity to do it.

‘A lone angel, going into a demon-infested place? No; that’s Castiel, Father’.

Her soft voice percolated the space. She always had a talent for going straight to the point in a respectful manner.

‘Where?’

‘Old Abdju, the City of Temples at the shores of the Iteru. He’s in the Eastern bank’.

 _And she hasn’t forgotten how to please me. Good_.

Lucifer threw himself into another plane to cut through the Earth, to surface directly in Abdju. The heat and magnetic pulses from the core could be felt clearly while Lucifer traversed his path.

Lucifer was sure Azazel’s daughter was following him, but she was much slower. For Lucifer not to miss the chance to speak with Castiel again, she had told him the location directly instead of making him follow her. Lucifer had maintained some communication with the demons while he was in the Cage, but it had been sparse at best—every few hundred years, at the most; thus, he was not up to date, for the most part, in all the names the pests used for all the places they knew in this planet.

 _If Castiel’s here, then_ …

Lucifer emerged in a random point inside the former city. Lucifer did not think he would be able to detect Castiel, since last time Lucifer had seen him, the rebel angel had stood before Lucifer and had been virtually undetectable were it not for the fact Lucifer saw him. _Castiel knows his wards_. He continued on foot, to better survey the city while his true sight looked far and wide, and his other senses tried to locate any anomaly. Lucifer was glad time had turned this city into ruins that blended in with the beautiful shore the humans had carved up to build it, with all their rock-hauling and flattening. Abdju was just the prelude of every other city in the world.

‘My Lord, you’ve arrived!’

Lucifer turned to face the demon which just spoke with its vessel’s visage, its true form a mangled and charred mess with several pointy limbs that looked especially ugly that quivered in excitement—as was par the course for demons during the last few millennia. There were other demons skulking about; as soon as that demon had said it was Lucifer who had arrived, they inched closer to contemplate the angel they regarded as their God.

‘But of course’. He made his vessel smile, and the demons that were close to his location turned to him like sunflowers towards the sun, only he, the strength of his Grace, were brighter than what the sun could ever hope to be. ‘You’ve been very good to me. Now, there is something that I’d like you to do for me’.

‘ **Anything** ’, the demon breathed from inside the corpse of a fourteen-year-old boy.

‘You’re going to surround me at all times, with a radius of about a hundred metres’.

 _That’s the most common human measuring system right now, I think. I hope this one’s a young demon_.

‘Then, I’m going to talk with our little intruder, if I can pin him down’.

‘Talk?’

‘Oh’. Lucifer parted his vessel’s lips, as if he was genuinely surprised by that question. He had never liked it when he was questioned; not by the angelic lower ranks and definitely not by demons. ‘You doubt me?’

‘Never!’

The demon bowed.

‘That’s what you say’, he said, placidly.

Lucifer impaled his vessel’s hand into the boy’s belly, reaching the demon directly. The other demons surrounding them cowered in fear. With his Grace, Lucifer made the demon contort in his hand and screech, its wispy and opaque form pulsed and begged for mercy.

 _Good_.

And Lucifer granted it mercy, of a sort, by ripping it out of the entrails it was clinging to like the parasite it was, still holding it in the hands of his vessel. Then, he cradled the demon to his vessel’s chest.

‘I didn’t want to do this’.

 _I’ve better things to do_.

One of his vessel’s index fingers shone brightly with Grace; the quailing demons that were edging away from him could not help but stop, watch, and be moved because of how Lucifer’s Grace resonated within their beings—because they were of Hell, and Hell was Lucifer’s. Lucifer drew a small circle of sigils in the demon he held. The demons wanted to feel Lucifer’s cold-burning Grace, but Grace burnt away impurities; thus the useless thing in his hand screamed higher than it ever had, before Lucifer banished it back to Hell; even greater its agony than when the used-to-be-soul had been strung up in one of the racks the very first time.

He willed his vessel to turn slowly, deliberately, before flying close to a demon as if he was attacking it. The demon ended so terrified that it made the body it occupied tremble. Lucifer stroked its brow with something like tenderness.

‘Don’t worry, you’ll get to have fun’. His vessel’s face contorted very nastily, still smiling. ‘If you’re stealthy, that is’.

After he was done explaining his plan to the demons, he kept looking around, without much success—until a demon was snuffed out of existence, its energy dispersing and tainting the air. It was actually not too far, so Lucifer made sure to be as quick and sneaky as possible. He made his vessel peek out of a crumbling wall. Castiel was there, his vessel crouched slowly and inched away from the vessel of the demon he had killed.

He could have passed for a normal human.

 _Disgusting_.

‘What do we have here?’, he commented on Castiel with a—very—human voice. He did not want to distract his demons from the purpose he had given them with pain from his true voice.

The change in Castiel’s demeanor was pretty remarkable; his little brother straightened his vessel’s back and turned, his hands in a wide gesture that indicated his readiness. His wings emerged as well, fanning themselves in a sweeping arch, almost ready to fly away.

‘Lucifer’.

_I wouldn’t have thought your wings would be… So beautiful. But these aren’t the best pair for a rebel, are they?_

Castiel’s wings actually had a natural glitter to them, like water rippling over them or, perhaps, stars studded in skies of foreign hues from other worlds in this galaxy. It was not a very common trait among angels. They were impressively coloured as well, not just the different combinations of colours most angels had, but _two_ different gradients in complementary colours that made them stand out against any landscape. Just one colour gradient would be rare enough in Heaven. But their stirring form was also their weakness. For Castiel to survive in this war he needed constant stealth—his wings were far too striking for that.

‘Hello, Castiel’.

Castiel was jumpy. His vessel wielded Castiel’s blade when the rebel angel tensed; he could see Castiel’s wings inching apart ever so slowly for the seraph to fly away from him at any moment.

‘No need to be like that’.

As he folded his wings inside him, he did so with deliberate slowness when he noticed Castiel’s gaze on them. He made sure to relax his vessel’s shoulders and look at Castiel with a neutral face.

‘I think it’s time for a friendly chat’. Lucifer felt irked at Castiel’s distrust when Castiel stood back one step. ‘So dour, brother’, he made his vessel say with an almost-sigh, and bottled up all of his presence inside the vessel. He understood that humans—and demons possessing humans—attacked almost exclusively with their hands, so he made a show of clasping his vessel’s hands behind its back.

Not that it would stop Lucifer from attacking Castiel should he had wanted to, however, Castiel was spending enough time with the damned humans that the gesture put him at ease.

‘What do you want?’

 _And Castiel’s a seraph_ , Lucifer mused. Which meant Castiel had **six** of those stunning appendages.

‘You like what I’ve done with the place? War was summoned here’, Lucifer answered him flippantly.

The deep blue teal of the coverts farthest from Castiel’s vessel looked like the water pooled in a _cenote_ , gradually turning into dusty indigo of offshore seas in the middle of a storm, finally lightening into the most delicate grayish sky blue with a certain green tinge to it.

‘Get to the point’.

‘Now’, Lucifer replied, trying to stall, ‘I believe I made you a job offer’.

He smiled, because that’s what humans did when they wanted to seem less threatening.

Of course, it seemed Castiel was too much of an angel yet to fall for that charade, even as weakened as Castiel was becoming.

‘ **Never** ’, Castiel answered vehemently.

He could feel the demons starting to approach very carefully, just as he told them to do, while he kept all of Castiel’s attention on him.

‘Really?’

 _What would make him stay for a while? Well, he’s allied with the humans_.

He shook his vessel’s head as if to forget Castiel’s distasteful allies.

‘Not even if I told you, you would be able to keep a bunch of humans to your liking?’

The proposal was not unreasonable, plus it had captured Castiel’s attention to the point Castiel had cast his vessel’s sight to the floor in doubt. Lucifer did not believe Castiel would acquiesce to that, but it would not be a great inconvenience to Lucifer to not kill a handful of pests while bagging himself a useful ally, after which Lucifer could power up Castiel to his full potential. He would neuter the humans, of course, so they did not taint the cleansed world with their spawn after his future victory.

As expected, Castiel looked back, with his Grace evident behind his vessel’s gaze.

‘Never’.

 _We’ll see about that_.

‘Ellen and Jo Harvelle are already dead’, Castiel stated.

Lucifer wondered if he had killed them.

 _The pests are so many, and so unremarkable, their souls just blend together at this point_.

‘Too bad’. It truly was too bad he would not stay by Lucifer’s side, if only just so Lucifer could look at the young seraph. ‘And I could use someone like you, for once’.

Castiel’s wings quivered. They were of such size, yet, in that instant, they were like a feeble reed swaying with the wind. The sober, clear purple of the outer flight feathers diluted into a low-key red before the flight feathers closest to Castiel’s vessel lit up in a reddish magenta, a sunset close to his body. Should outer space be a lake, with all the stars swimming in its vast darkness, Lucifer would have sworn Castiel had scooped some of it and then dipped each of his flight feathers in it; such a dark black were the flight-feathers’ tips and so bright shone little points like stars.

‘You don’t mean that’, Castiel retorted.

_What use could I possibly have for a clever seraph that actually bothers to use his smarts?_

There was a **reason** Lucifer tolerated Azazel’s daughter to the degree he did.

Lucifer now wondered what Castiel’s true form looked like when it was not folded in his vessel.

‘Unlike my siblings, I don’t see why I should lie, Castiel’.

Gabriel was fond of white lies a little too much, and Michael was an extremist who would employ any means necessary to carry out what he believed their Father’s will to be. And the less said about Raphael’s zealotry, the better.

‘We’ll see about that’, Castiel threw back at him.

 _Oh, so you doubt, but don’t sway_.

His brother’s resolve, especially as Castiel turned down his offer, was truly impressive; Castiel was besieged by all sides in this war, and on the hit list of all of them. Even Lucifer’s. But Lucifer would either break him, or kill him, eventually, and either outcome would be of benefit to him.

The demons were slowly crawling behind monuments and rocks and crumbling walls.

‘Yes, we will’, Lucifer agreed earnestly because he felt smug his plans were going so smoothly. He forgot himself and the lid he had put on his Grace and started to advance towards Castiel, oozing confidence. ‘Because you can’t avoid everyone forever. Then, since no one can help you, you’ll become more and more desperate. Really, a pity’.

It really was a pity, especially when Lucifer failed to instill fear in Castiel, who snapped ‘you wish’, in anger, giving Lucifer the chance to examine those wings closely. And, finally, Castiel settled his Grace enough to notice Lucifer drank in his wings’ appearance predatorily. Instead of recoiling, Castiel spread his wings even wider. Lucifer looked at the gesture with interest—it only gave him more access to observe the wings. He relished in the different colours.

_What are you trying to say with this gesture, Castiel?_

Archangels were so much mightier than other angels, that Lucifer—or any of his ilk—could not have considered **ever** that Castiel had tried to pull intimidating behaviour on him. Archangels were generals, great weapons in and of themselves. They did not get intimidated, or had a _need_ to intimidate others; archangels only ever hesitated.

‘That’s what you say’, noted Lucifer. ‘But, as you become more desperate, I will find you again, and again. And, you’ll either say yes to my offer or… If the demon hordes kill you along the way…’

Now, Lucifer did not exactly want Castiel to be killed, but he did not… _not_ want it, either—too convenient. But he did feel saddened at the prospect of killing another one of his brethren.

‘Well, Castiel, that’s hardly my fault’.

He signalled the demons with his vessel’s arms as he spoke.

‘Get him, boys!’

The demons crawled from behind the crumbling walls, and jumped over them to grab Castiel, both as wisps one step away from reality and as vicious creatures with bodies. Lucifer gave them a wide berth while he settled in to observe the spectacle. Some demons burnt themselves to nothing in painful shrieks when they tugged at Castiel’s feathers, to Lucifer’s amusement. _I should have told them Castiel is a seraph even if he’s so weak_. Lucifer mulled that thought. _Nah, not at all_. But when more demons tugged at the feathers, the coverts reflected the light in their borders.  Silver. Castiel’s feathers were enframed in silver. Whenever the covert feathers were moved by the demons pulling at them and when Castiel’s wings spasmed to wrench the demons off themselves, the covert feathers looked like silver flakes, enameled with colours, that were being carried away by a breeze.

Castiel unfolded one more wing—just as beautiful as the other two—and burnt to oblivion the demons without bodies when Castiel swept it in front of himself. Two demons in the bodies of wrinkled humans grabbed the overcoat that Castiel’s vessel wore to drag the rebel angel off to a side, but that did not last long because Castiel beat shrieks out of them with the wing that was alone. When one of them tried to rise up, Castiel dragged it violently by the hair and stabbed him, throwing the empty body in front of him as an obstacle for the other demons to stumble on. Castiel turned around to punch a demon in the stomach who had thought it could sneak on Castiel, then Castiel gutted it. A demon swiped at him with a knife, and actually managed to slash the arm of Castiel’s vessel deeply. The vessel grunted in pain; Castiel’s vessel shoved the demon with the shoulder of its hurt arm into some tall rocks, and pushed his blade to the hilt below the demon’s jaw. Castiel’s vessel looked at Lucifer as Castiel crushed the neck of a woman in her mid-thirties in a Bedouin garb, however, Lucifer raised the eyebrows in his vessel’s face, and waved its hands. He was going to do nothing.

 _So the little one knows how to fight_ , Lucifer thought.

This elicited a frustrated cry from Castiel, who extended his full wingspan—all six wings of it—and spun on his vessel’s heel. Any demons hit were either destroyed or, if they had the protection of a vessel, acquired nasty rashes that made them cry out in pain wherever Castiel had hit them. Lucifer could not appreciate the full effect of looking at all the beautiful appendages forming a wall of colour and shimmer because the attacking demons had obscured the wings in their frenzy before Castiel had shaken them off, plus, when Castiel was done with that move, he had tucked all his wings inside the vessel but for whatever pair Castiel was using to fly, to give himself a little breathing room. An extensive wingspan was impressive and useful to beat enemies with, but they were hard for the body to maneuver with, and they were also a little bit harder to take off with. Castiel broke into a run away from Lucifer, and, after he had kicked one demon and finally had room for it—no demons in the way, in vessels or otherwise—Castiel flapped his wings, shifted planes and took off.

Demons were not airborne, unlike angels, but they had considerable strength. A demon garbed almost completely in blue vaulted over another crumbling wall to drag Castiel down into the mortal plane, but a forceful kick from Castiel’s vessel put an end to that plan. Castiel was furious; now that he was on one of the ethereal planes, Lucifer could see Castiel’s Grace lighting up the eyes of the vessel. The redolent anger in Castiel’s Grace leaked slightly into the air. Castiel seemed to have his own Grace in a vice grip, so tightly controlled that Lucifer could barely taste the crispness of Castiel’s emotions in the air, yet the vessel’s eyes glared white light from Castiel’s fury. Castiel flew farther where not even any of their true voices would carry. When Castiel turned to look at Lucifer with spite, his vessel’s eyes seemed two white beacons from afar.

Lucifer had not prayed in a long, long time to any of his siblings ever since he had shown them the humans’ true nature hundreds of thousands of years ago. Only to his Father; not even to Michael or to Gabriel or to Raphael had he prayed when he got out of his Cage. But Castiel, just about to flee away from him, seemed ripe for a taunting, and that was something Lucifer had never been able to resist, for better or for worse.

**Why so angry?**

The earnest prayer startled Castiel into looking at Lucifer. Then, Castiel raged, and prayed to the Devil.

**You lied to me!**

The prayer conveyed Castiel’s fury in his true voice, as well as the undercurrent of _Father of Lies_ almost screaming at him.

 **Oh, no, Castiel, you don’t get to feel that** , chided Lucifer, very amused. **I said I wanted you to join me. And I do**. Castiel’s vessel gasped visibly when Castiel listened to Lucifer’s true voice vibrate inside of his Grace. **And I said you could even keep some humans, and that’s such a small thing it doesn’t bother me at all. And I said I didn’t want to hurt you, and I don’t, but I can’t just scrape prior plans, you understand. Or respond for my demons, little brother. They’re such unruly things**.

For a moment, Lucifer thought Castiel would fly away without saying anything to him, which would have been fantastic. Perplexing, then, that Lucifer’s Grace reverberated with Castiel’s pleasant true voice, curt and calculating.

 **I see** , Castiel prayed.

 _That’s_ when Castiel flew off, without much hurry—Castiel was  still confident.

Lucifer had once said it before to Castiel, but the thought cropped up again, unbidden.

 _What a peculiar thing you are_.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

‘It seems Castiel couldn’t stay away from Egypt forever’, Azazel’s daughter told him when she let herself in the grand room where Lucifer read about Earth.

Lucifer, out of sheer pragmatism, had taken upon himself to learn all current names of the locations in the human world. It was essential he knew this to be able to order his troops around, since most demons were new demons—demons had such a limited shelf-life. And the only reason he knew some names—he was cast out when humanity had not spread out yet beyond Africa—was because either Azazel or Lilith had updated him on how his last orders were being carried out, and filled him in in that regard.

In their true forms, the size difference between Lucifer and demons in general was more readily apparent, with him dwarfing everything else. Azazel’s daughter tilted back her head to take Lucifer’s form in; long, iron-black tendrils fell down her back, and then knelt as an apology for intruding. Her crystal-clear claws carried a basin of some kind, etched in Enochian inside and out, that was full of the blood of the damned.

WHAT AN INCONVENIENT ANGEL. The tails of Azazel’s daughter flicked nervously behind her, so Lucifer decided to put her at ease. THANK YOU, BAT-AZAZEL. THAT’LL DO. WHERE IS HE?

 _No need to kill off a useful demon_.

‘Just a couple minutes ago he was sighted by a Crossroads demon flying to the coast. He is looking for something’.

WHAT MAKES YOU SAY THAT?

Lucifer was only vaguely interested by that, but still, he wanted to know how Azazel’s daughter came to that conclusion.

‘He infiltrated Sutah’s Temple at Abydos, killed the demons that were thrown at him, and then raided the Valley of Kings, apparently. So many sightings made it easy to trace his flight path’. She shrugged.

Azazel’s daughter strode forwards and spilled the basin in front of him, while she recited an Enochian spell. Instantly, the sickly brown appearance of the blood changed into a scene.

‘This is the image I ordered sent to me. He should be a little further onwards’.

She had just shown him without prompting Castiel’s general location. Because Hell ran much slower than Earth, he actually had a good chance of catching up to Castiel in that moment. Lucifer had half a mind to let the seraph go this time, since he had more important things to do, but Azazel’s daughter had done such a good effort in telling him and in anticipating his wants that it seemed a pity not to take the opportunity she had presented to him. She also had a lot of faith in him, and loved him so genuinely, that Lucifer could not help but appreciate that. If there was anything he liked in Azazel’s daughter, it was her loyalty.

 _I think_ , Lucifer thought with compassion, _after I win, I shall kill you first_.

EXCELLENT WORK.

She bowed respectfully, and then waved a hand. In Hell, demons had more powers, and so the blood was lifted off the floor, leaving the floor completely clean, and went into the basin. With her eyes of fire, Azazel’s daughter looked at him adoringly as Lucifer unfurled all of his wings.

_Won’t it be very sad when I break your heart because I destroyed your race in front of your eyes?_

IF YOU’RE NOT BUSY, YOU CAN COME.

‘I still need to talk with Belial about the Famine thing’.

 _Yes. I will definitely kill you first_.

Lucifer did not give more directions and, with Azazel’s daughter, he did not need to. So he flew, putting on the temporary shell that was his current vessel, and emerged, very discreetly, a long way from Castiel. Castiel was flying, yes, but at that same leisurely pace Lucifer had seen him flying so many times before. Lucifer could not get closer since his wings, the most attractive wings in all of Heaven, were not stealthy, either. Lucifer waited a good while, and flew bit by bit, always keeping Castiel at the same distance. Castiel touched shore in the former city of Peguat, near the modern city of Alexandria. There was a modern human settlement near the ruins of Peguat, as well, but he did not know what that was called, yet.

Lucifer folded his wings, and watched.

 _So that’s what you raided the tombs for_.

In the vessel’s hands Castiel carried a short staff, but this one was made of silver, not the customary gold. He muttered some spell or another until the waters of the sea bubbled over the wet sand. From the waters, a woman rose with dark skin and long hair and eyes even darker than sin, dressed in a robe made from flotsam. Lucifer recognised her, but not from her current appearance; he recognised her because of her presence, for she was an old goddess. Lucifer may have been older than her, but she was older than many angels and had not had any form when the archangels first met her. The Sumerians, he knew, had called her Tiamat, and she had been thwarting Lucifer at every turn along the coasts; capable of fielding seemingly inexhaustible amount of soldiers to drive off any apocalyptic happenings.

Castiel’s vessel rose from its kneeling position in the sand. They seemed to have a short conversation that was soon over.

This is when Lucifer choose to make his entrance. Castiel stiffened his vessel’s back when he noticed him but, curiously, did not move an inch.

I SHOULD KILL YOU, TIAMAT.

Tiamat smiled.

YOU WELL KNOW YOU CAN’T FOR AS LONG AS I’M IN HERE.

 _Yes, I know. Your only saving virtue is that you insist on thwarting dear old Michael as well_.

CASTIEL, Lucifer drawled, curious. WHY ARE YOU HAVING A CHAT WITH THE SEA?

NONE OF YOUR CONCERN, bit out Castiel.

OH, Tiamat said, I THINK YOU’LL FIND IT VERY AMUSING, MORNINGSTAR.

NEBET-HET, PLEA—

DO TELL, Lucifer prompted.

Castiel’s attitude brought another smile to her lips. This time her smile peeled back her teeth and gums, making The Sea look like one of the dangerous creatures she had been host to, in ages past.

I AM NOT ON _ANYONE_ _’_ _S_ SIDE , CASTIEL, she scolded him like a human mother would scold its spawn. That conduct did not surprise Lucifer, for The Sea was a lot older than Castiel. AS YOU YOURSELF AREN’T. YOU SHOWED ME HOW YOU MADE ALL THOSE ANGELS SCREAM. Tiamat turned to Lucifer, and spoke. VERY SIMPLE: HE’S LOOKING FOR THE CREATOR.

FOR FATHER, Lucifer hissed dangerously, and then his focus returned to Tiamat. WHAT DID YOU TALK ABOUT?

It was a strange guffaw, Tiamat’s laughter; as she doubled over, the waves of the ocean seemed to get stronger, their sound strangely jubilant.

OH, LUCIFER. I’M NOT ON **YOUR** SIDE , EITHER.

Both Castiel and Lucifer watched intently with their true sight as The Sea dissolved back, between peals of laughter, into foam that was washed away by the tide.

Lucifer’s anger was a thick snowfall that permeated the air.

I KNEW YOU WERE ARROGANT, Lucifer said when he recalled the laid-back way in which Castiel insisted in flying away from him, BUT I DIDN’T KNOW HOW MUCH.

Lucifer unfolded and spread his wings, at the same time Castiel’s vessel stepped back to give room to Castiel’s wingspan to do the same.

 _I’m going to kill you_. _I’ll burn you inside out_.

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK FATHER WOULD ANSWER TO YOU WHEN HE DOESN’T TO US? TO **ME**!, Lucifer roared when he flew after Castiel.

I HAVE MY REASONS!, Castiel shouted back.

In an instant, they went past the Mediterranean, and Europe, and the Arctic Sea, then Castiel dove past the icy waters, and Lucifer dutifully followed him, emerging eventually somewhere south of Australia, as Castiel twisted and turned. Lucifer kept gaining distance on Castiel, which pleased him greatly.

He flew faster and faster because Castiel was flying as fast as he seemed able. Suddenly, Castiel gave himself a thrust, and flew faster than Lucifer. Castiel kept up the gap between them. When Lucifer achieved his peak velocity, Castiel’s vessel looked at him. With its face, Castiel smiled at him mockingly, then flew even faster.

Lucifer was so enraged that, instead of just giving off the feeling around him, he unleashed his snowstorm of fury. Later, the human weather forecasts in Nepal would report an early winter snow; not that Lucifer would know or care about that at all. Lucifer concentrated energy in one of his limbs, and blasted Castiel off the atmosphere—only, he did not. When he flew across the spot Castiel had been, there were not trace amounts of any kind from Castiel’s death, but a trail into another dimension.

_Impressive._

When it had been but instants since Castiel had gone, he had thought: _Too fast_. The Seraph indeed had the flying ability to match his wings… Lucifer had many superlative qualities, but he did not think for a second even  he could match that swiftness. Demons, being broken humans, were not able to judge the speed of any angel beyond the fact that angels were faster than them, which was why he felt magnanimous he would not smite immediately the next wretched thing that came up to him for some thing or another, for not telling him that Castiel was so fast. He had seen faster, of course, but that mattered little at the moment.

Castiel could change dimensions as smoothly as he changed planes. Lucifer hauled himself to the dimension the subtle rift in reality pointed him to. This was a tranquil place with rolling green hills; the abode of the Jade Emperor. But one thing was following an opening into another dimension, and another was tracing a flight path when you could not see the other angel directly. Lucifer could not see Castiel in the sky flying in any direction at all, so his Grace simmered unhappily. It dawned on him what Castiel had done.

 _Clever little brother, you changed dimensions, flew off, and changed dimensions again_.

Castiel could be in any place on Earth. If Castiel was on Earth at all; he certainly seemed clever enough to change dimensions a couple times more before picking a destination.

 _You weren’t arrogant at all, were you? You knew my maximum velocity, and you knew you were faster_.

The whole Host knew all about the qualities and abilities of all the archangels, because the archangels were the most admired and revered angels in all of Heaven and, as such, had been observed closely by their little siblings whenever they had the chance. It was not strange at all a lone seraph such as Castiel would know those details about Lucifer.

Although now Lucifer knew how a weakening rebel angel such as Castiel might have managed not to have been killed by the whole Host as of yet. Swiftness would never be enough to evade the whole of Heaven, and yet, Castiel was alive, while the Host itched to kill him. Castiel had to be ruthless and smart, and someone Lucifer should smite.

 _But all you do is flee. That’s the only thing that velocity is good for_. _Such a waste of young talent_.

Why was Lucifer getting mad about Castiel looking for their Father when it was just a gamble born out of pain and desperation? Lucifer knew that Castiel was set against the world, literally.

 _Of course Father won’t answer to him_.

The Morningstar was the angel their Father loved best—had loved best—and Lucifer’s prayers still fell on deaf ears.

( _Lucifer would never admit that Castiel’s search rankled him, and that it was something he wanted to do, too_ ).

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

A demon wheeled in the corpse to the centre of the dank gym, and left both wheelchair and old man at the centre of a circle. It had been a feeble human, to be helped by others, just as Lucifer had asked. On one side of the circle, Azazel’s daughter inspected the sealed boxes with the souls inside, and gave more orders to the other demons. She liked to do things herself when it involved directly pleasing Lucifer, so that there were no hitches in the plan. In front of her was one of Lucifer’s generals; only some eight thousand years old. His generals were old.

‘Belial’, Azazel’s daughter said.

‘Yes, Lady?’

She rolled her eyes. Her tails flickered around her body, as she glanced at Lucifer from the corner of her eyes.

Lucifer waited calmly, while his vessel leant against a wall in a relaxed fashion. In its hand, Lucifer toyed with a silver ring that had a black amber stone on it. Faint chains dangled from the ring in one of the upper planes, clinking with each movement Lucifer made. Lucifer did not care much about what his demons did in his presence, so long as they did what he told them quickly and efficiently.

‘Have you finished your takeover of Niveus?’, asked Azazel’s daughter.

‘Damn right I did’. The blond body laughed. ‘Man, I haven’t had as much fun since last time I fucked up Ukraine’s shit’.

‘I’m glad someone’s having fun’. Azazel’s daughter closed the last box with a light tap, and signalled to another suited demon to start putting the boxes on the tables that were arranged around the circle. ‘Just how much data they had on people from clinical trials? Those’ she pointed with her thumb to a huge pile in the corner of the gym, ‘are a lot of corpses. The poor, poor bastards’.

She did not sound sorry at all, and Lucifer was less so.

‘If there’s something I learnt while I was living it up back in Stanford is that humans have gotten better at data collection. It was beautiful, m’Lady’.

For once, the smile in Belial’s vessel matched his true form, full of very sharp teeth, aggressive.

‘So that’s where you got them’, cut in Lucifer.

Belial’s whole demeanor instantly changed: He averted his gaze, and spoke softly.

‘Yes, Father. Medical research seemed the easiest way to get what we needed. Obese people with malnutrition, and a platform for Pestilence. Two birds with a stone, and all that’.

Lucifer‘s vessel nodded. Belial found himself dismissed with that gesture; his body sighed and went slack. It amused Lucifer how fear and adoration constantly battled in Belial’s mind.

‘The wealthy who starve’, quoted Azazel’s daughter—a line from the summoning spell. ‘Pretty smart, coming from you’.

‘Oh, come on!’, protested Belial.

‘You should have seen the last time Famine was unleashed, Belial’. Azazel’s daughter sounded gleeful. ‘The feather-heads had to wipe the slate clean’.

‘What happened?’

‘Have you ever heard of Atlantis?’ Azazel’s daughter laughed. ‘Of course, back then it wasn’t called that. Completely erased off the map’. She flicked a hand horizontally as she said the last sentence. ‘Oray had some very fun times messing with the Ancient Greeks, playing off one another in their petty little wars’.

‘Let me guess’, Belial answered with fake derision and surprise. ‘Plato thought it was all just a big joke?’

‘Correct! A point for Belial’.

The demon who had arranged the boxes in the tables turned to look at Azazel’s daughter.

‘Lady?’

‘Bring Friedrich and the others, and hurry up, will you? Your places are marked with your personal summoning sigils’.

Belial and Azazel’s daughter took two big metal cans completely sealed, and sank to their knees. Lucifer walked until he was standing between them, facing the corpse in the wheelchair, outside of the summoning circle. He started the chant, a chant he had learned by heart to stave off the madness of the Cage. As he spoke, the demons by his sides ripped open the lids, and lard fell out of the cans they tilted. The lard started to form a pattern edging the circle.

The air seemed to wobble, as if it were in the middle of a hot day. Somehow, reality seemed to be distorted, then, it sunk in, confusing even Lucifer‘s own angelic senses… until something like a gash pulsated angrily in the air. Only, it was not a gash, it was more like a fleshy throat with energy throbbing through the membranous veins that could be seen coating its insides, and jagged teeth lined its borders.

Lucifer found himself looking at The Famine.

The teeth click-clacked, the flesh with teeth opened and let out a sinister energy.

I’M SO HUNGRY.

Its statement reverberated through the air in such a way that Lucifer had to root all demons to their spots with his own power so they could not get away from The Famine to fulfill their own urges, their hunger. In contrast, Lucifer was not even affected, which only proved his superiority, in Lucifer’s opinion.

( _Except_ …).

I KNOW, Lucifer retorted. He looked at The Famine without fear.

The wooden floor cracked open, and cockroaches started to come in from the cracks.

( _He turned his vessel’s head—although he didn’t have to, not really—and, due to his attentiveness, he had all the time in the world to take in the wings of the other angel—with much interest, to his surprise. Castiel’s wings shimmered under the timid light that entered through a hole in the roof of the abandoned warehouse Castiel had chosen to interrogate the demon in_ …).

The other demons doubled over in pain while Belial tightened his face and Azazel’s daughter barely grimaced. The maw in the air opened and started to suck in everything it found digestible. All of the demons found themselves writhing on the floor, desperately trying to keep their essences inside of them, lest the open throat in the air swallowed their true selves whole.

OH, FAMINE. ALWAYS TOO EAGER.

Lucifer’s vessel strode up to the corpse casually, and put on one of its fingers the ring that had been on his Cage’s door since the beginning of his imprisonment until Lucifer broke out. The maw collapsed in itself with an unearthly shriek, tearing open the gym’s walls at the same time the demons were thrown around.

The pale corpse of the wheelchair-bound elderly opened its eyes.

‘You will pay’.

WILL I? Lucifer extended his vessel’s arms. NOW, FAMINE, WHO SAID YOU COULDN’T FEED? I PREPARED A FEAST FOR YOU ALONE.

‘Good’.

The other demons got suspended in the air, and the boxes flipped open.

YOU WILL JUST HAVE TO LEAVE ME THESE TWO. THAT’S ALL I ASK.

Belial and Azazel’s daughter heaved from the floor.

 _They’re far too useful_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to know what all the references mean, why Meg’s demon name is ‘Bat-Azazel’, and just look at my reasoning and thoughts in general, then you should look at all the notes at the end of the text [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12188821/4/The-Devil-Falls).
> 
> I hope you liked this chapter, too.


	5. Wary Searching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Looking for God is hard work, and it has severe drawbacks for Castiel. Like, say, almost getting killed in Wales.

Nebet-het was like a revelation when she arose. The short staff in his hands resonated with power, power that seemed to extend to, to be part of, the body forming itself from sea salt and bubbles. Her robe of flotsam was translucent, delicate, and smelled of algae weeds, her skin darker than the fertile silt the Nile used to bring for the Egyptians. Castiel kept his vessel’s head bowed until she had finished to materialise before him, his true sight taking all in. Castiel rose.

The Sea looked curious; her eyes roamed over his vessel, not being able to quite determine if he was human or something more.

NEBET-HET, Castiel greeted her.

WHAT A SURPRISE! She raised her eyebrows. Castiel knew it was because she could not feel his presence, but he did not dare drop his wards; this trip had been too much of a risk already. IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I TALKED TO ONE OF KHNUM’S CHILDREN.

Castiel’s Grace stirred. All his wings were twitching inside. He did not feel safe.

I CAME HERE FOR COUNSEL. I WOULD ASK YOU A QUESTION, NOTHING ELSE.

Old gods were fickle, very fickle.

 **Please, Father. Don’t let this be in vain**.

WHAT’S YOUR NAME?

Her eyes were the bottom of the sea made into colour, with the phantom of the blue ocean in them swimming in the darkest and most foreboding black. Her hair looked like ropes and coils made out of the same abysal matter. Nevertheless, Nebet-het’s features did not seem out of place in the moonlit shores.

CASTIEL.

She crossed her arms, flounting such an easy humanity it surprised Castiel.

 _But of course, you’ve been among humans in different places for thousands and thousands of years_ , Castiel reasoned.

YOU UNRULY GAGGLE OF CHILDREN WANT TO DESTROY THE WORLD, SO I DON’T SEE WHY I SHOULD HELP YOU, _C ASTIEL_.

BECAUSE, and he made his Grace candy up the air around them, I DON’T WANT THIS. I WANT TO STOP IT.

The sea goddess studied him for a short while. Castiel would have liked to think Nebet-het read his Grace, although it was far more likely that something in his countenance, in his true voice, made her consider that he had told her the truth.

SHOW ME, THEN.

WHAT?

DON’T TELL ME YOU’RE DUMB. YOU REBELLED, YOU CLAIM. SHOW ME A RECENT MEMORY OF YOU, KILLING YOUR SIBLINGS. PREFERABLY ON AN URBAN AREA SO I KNOW IT’S IN THIS CENTURY, AT LEAST.

Castiel froze.

_How?_

Thankfully, his silence seemed to be enough for Nebet-het to realise Castiel did not know how to do what she had asked of him.

YOU SAID THE SPELL. YOU HAVE THE STAFF. She motioned a hand towards it. I AM THE FIRST WATERS, THE OCEAN AND THE SEAS, THE ABYSS THAT, and she smiled without Castiel understanding why, MEN ARE AFRAID TO LOOK INTO FOR TOO LONG FOR FEAR OF BEING CHANGED. SO HOLD THE SILVER STAFF OF MY PRIESTS IN OLD KHEMET, HOLD IT AS IF YOU WERE DYING, AND THINK OF YOUR SIBLINGS NOW DEAD; AND YOU’LL SHOW ME, CASTIEL… IF TRUE.

Castiel did not even had to think about what her words meant. _To hold it as if I were dying. Easy enough_. Castiel drew away the slight traces of Grace that exerted his will and his power in his vessel’s hands, and stilled its heart and made the blood stand still, rarefied. He thought of Uriel, of the moment when Raphael was about to kill him, of Elijah, of Zuriel, Uriel’s ashes. It was only for an instant. Then he allowed his vessel to live again.

LOOK AT WHAT WE HAVE HERE. She flicked her hair. Her eyes wanted to pry into Castiel’s vessel—they could not—to see him truly inside, which filled Castiel with suspicion. SOMEONE WITH NO SIDES IN THIS WAR. I LIKE THAT. Castiel did not correct her in that he had, in fact, chosen a side: humanity. The old goddess could believe whatever it suited her. ASK AWAY.

Relief invaded Castiel, to the point that he poured his Grace inside of himself again, just to not give away his emotions as much.

BUT YOU ONLY GET ONE QUESTION, CASTIEL.

_That’s fine._

I AM LOOKING FOR MY FATHER, Castiel told her. Nebet-het looked at him in disbelief. Castiel paused, considering how to phrase his question. _I have to be careful, she could trick me_. In a flash of inspiration, he had it, as water-tight as Castiel could make it: C AN YOU TELL ME… WHERE HE IS, IF YOU HAVE HIS LOCATION, OR THE MOST CERTAIN, RECENT THING YOU’VE KNOWN ABOUT HIM, OR OF HIM?

 _That should cover everything, hopefully_.

HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN.

Castiel, the ever-dimming Seraph of the Lord, lesser, becoming so very limited and dull and useless in this war, could not help but agree with this assessment. Even if he kept his agreement quiet.

YOU NEED TO TALK TO MY SON, VRITRA.

Castiel’s vessel furrowed its eyebrows. Nebet-het waited patiently for Castiel to remember, which indicated to Castiel he should know this being.

THE DROUGHT DRAGON, ISN’T HE?, he proded

CORRECT. BECAUSE I LIKE YOUR HONESTY, I’M GOING TO TELL YOU SOMETHING. USUALLY, I WOULDN’T, BUT AT LEAST YOU AREN’T WRECKING MY SHORES, MY DELTAS, AND MY CITIES, SO, UNFORTUNATELY, THAT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME NOWADAYS.

She sounded upset, so Castiel sought to placate her.

I’M GRATEFUL FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE.

Castiel made sure to bow his head with due respect, unlike the slight, friendly nods he gave to hunters.

MY SON DOESN’T HAVE THE INFORMATION YOU SEEK. WHAT VRITRA KNOWS IS WHERE ONE OF HIS FRIENDS, SUVARNAMATSYA, IS STAYING.

Castiel did not recognise that name, ‘Suvarnamatsya’, and voiced his question by echoing the name.

I DIDN’T THINK ANY OF YOU WOULD KNOW HER. SHE’S ONE OF MY DWELLERS SO SHE DOESN’T STAY ABOVE GROUND FOR LONG. YOUNG, YOUNG ENOUGH SHE ONLY APPEARS IN SOME MYTHS OF WHAT IS NOW INDOCHINA, DESPITE HER STRENGTH.

 _She said ‘dweller’. So Suvarnamatsya must be sea-bound_.

WOULDN’T IT BE EASIER TO TELL ME WHERE SUVARNAMATSYA IS?

Nebet-het sighed.

WERE IT THAT SIMPLE. I CAN ONLY KEEP TABS ON MY CHILDREN. Nebet-het stepped back, as if to dissolve, but seemed to think better of it. SUVARNAMATSYA ONCE MENTIONED SHE HAD AN ENCOUNTER WITH KHNUM, BUT SHE DIDN’T TELL ME MUCH MORE. I WAS HER CONFIDANTE. RELAY TO HER MY COMMAND TO HELP YOU. SAVE THE STAFF, AND GIVE IT TO HER.

At a wave of her hand, the staff was seared with hyeroglyphs that said ‘tell the bearer everything you know about Khnum, naïve girl’. A hand tucked it inside the overcoat Castiel’s vessel wore.

WHY WOULD YOU NEED TO ORDER HER?

The Sea chuckled.

WE’VE HAD SOME DISAGREEMENTS AS OF LATELY. AND SALUTE VRITRA IN MY STEAD.

Castiel accepted this answer, and agreed to Nebet-het’s request.

LUCIFER IS HERE, Nebet-het told him.

Castiel tensed. He almost got his wings out to—

DO STAY, CASTIEL. HE CAN’T HURT YOU WHILE I’M HERE.

Old gods were fickle. Castiel weighed his chances, what he could do with a quasi–information-source…

Castiel stayed.

He almost got killed for it.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Castiel thought long and hard about how to find the dragon who lived to bring droughts, given that he could be anywhere in this modern world, a world made by humans with wanderlust to be so full of travelling, of people moving away from home and not coming back. About some four days later, after reading newspapers and tuning into radio, he ended up deciding to go to the home Vritra had lived in for the longest time, the Indian subcontinent. But before he did that, he needed to call for him, so he looked at the summoning circle he was working on, in the rocks not far off from the parched Indus delta, and prowled around it, nervous. And before Castiel summoned Vritra, he had taken an additional five days to research what he had needed, and to get adequate offerings for the summons. Unspecific summons did not need to have offerings, like Crossroads summons, but specific summons sometimes did not work with strong deities if there was not an anchor; the offering to lure the presence in.

 _Something of Vritra. An offering. The earth that connects us all_.

It was not the first time Castiel had to whip up spells on the fly; most malachim had done that—whether met with success or failure—at some point or another of their bellicose existences, for they did not have the strengths of the Erelim or the Rit Zien, and, unlike the Galgalim and the Cherubim, they had been made to wage war, to fill the rank and file of the Heavenly Hosts… Thus they had to make do to survive, more often than not. But this was a complex patch-up spell because he lacked so much—he could not hope to get what he was missing because Castiel had very few resources, both him and his allies.

He had prayed for wisdom, to his Father, whom Castiel believed listened to him—because his Father had to be. He had prayed because Castiel was desperately running out of options and Dean was looking every day more troubled than the last; Dean’s prayer-rants were coming in less and less, each more defeated-sounding than the last. Castiel feared either of the Winchesters—his friends—would crack and say **yes**. And when that day arrived, Castiel would be truly alone, and he might as well be dead.

Castiel stopped walking amidst the dust clouds, and considered his spell componentes again.

The circle was a mixture of Enochian and Sanskrit. A rare variant of a Vedic hymn, one that Castiel had looked up in a dusty old temple library by the shores of the Ganges, was etched in the annulus of the two concentric circles that formed his spell matrix. The hymn sung about Vritra’s strength and fearsome body—that part was just before a description of the battle Vritra had waged against Indra, which Castiel knew was a huge and significant event in Vritra’s life. It was not a prayer, since all of those were lost when the asuras started to be thought of, indiscriminately, as evil at the time the Upanishads were written; it was not a proper summoning, since no one had ever bothered to undertake the complex proccess to figure out one for Vritra—and Castiel lacked time—due to the fact that Vritra had never been very popular, for Vritra had been _considered_ a minor god in that pantheon. Any of those—prayer, specific summoning—would have been preferable, but all Castiel had was this old paean to the might of the dragon that brings droughts written in the descendant of the very first language Vritra had spoken in, and that would have to do.

 _Something of Vritra_.

Castiel did not had anything that belonged to the asura, specifically. But Castiel had been given this blessing and this commandment inside this silver staff he had stolen by Vritra’s mother; Castiel had drawn the circle in the parched earth of the delta of a suffering Indus River in drought, just like the ones Vritra had enjoyed causing every so often in the rivers of his first lands; plus there was the old paean to him Castiel had etched as carefully as possible in the circular ring of the two circles; and that would have to do.

 _An offering_.

Castiel did not know what Vritra liked, specifically. But he thought of the old foods of Vritra’s birthland long and hard, and its oral stories and songs… Thus, he had flown to the Kashmir mountains and foraged whatever ephedra he could find to make the sacred soma. Castiel had never cooked in his life, and why would he? He had no need for sustenance—yet—so cooking was irrelevant, a waste of time; a quirk of Balthazar when he had been alive and in a vessel. But Balthazar had liked to try drinks and foods while the garrison was on a mission; a secret Castiel would keep until Castiel died. His penchant for worldliness aside, Balthazar had been a perfect soldier and Castiel’s best defense against stalking angels and Castiel’s best friend; something Castiel was grateful now he had never reported, for there had been one time Castiel had seen Balthazar make soma in northern Kazakhstan, a long time ago before Sanskrit existed. Castiel was less than destitute now, but what he did have, like all angels, was a perfect memory and perfect control over his vessel. He sat down and brew soma exactly like he had seen Balthazar do, speeding the proccess with all his know-how and the little modern human technology he knew. The fruits of his efforts, a dark concoction poured into a washed-green glass bottle, sat now in one of the points of the circle with a clay vase besides it. The soma was sacred, for the soma had been used in temples and religious rituals, the preferred drink of Vritra’s ilk; and that would have to do.

 _The earth that connects us all_.

This always was the hardest part, because Castiel was not a mortal creature, let alone an immortal creature with a physical body of its own; quite unlike the youngest and weakest of the gods. Usually, the earth itself served as the platform for the call, so the fact that it was an angel with a borrowed body calling would have been of no consequence. However, Castiel had the earth pulling double duty as both the circle’s foundation and as Vritra, the parched earth. This was not to Castiel’s liking; the spell componentes were shoddy, the circle itself was unstable with its haphazard mess of structures…

But it would have to do.

And thus Castiel chanted the Enochian spell, a language older and vastly more powerful than anything else on his Father’s Creation but for His own Hand, then Castiel stood in the reddish-brown soil of the dry banks of the delta, and waited partially hidden from human sight thanks to the dry shrubs.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Thus he waited for two more days, until he was sure nothing would happen, after all.

_Why?_

When he had contacted The Sea and it turned out she had had some useful information, after all, Castiel had been so exultant he had thanked his Father profusely for the blessing He had sent in the form of Asmina. When all was said and done, some information that could be thousands of years out of date was better than no information at all and his prior dead ends. But now, the possibility of finding Him so close, so tantalising yet managing to slip away…

 _This is too cruel_.

 **Father, this is too cruel**.

Castiel wanted to cry and reach out to his brethren, to throw around his new-found power, to wrap himself in his wings for comfort, to be back with the Winchesters and just talk, for his vessel to sink to his knees and just rest for an age. But Castiel could not reach out to his brethren because that would get him killed. He could not make the sky thunder and hail fire because he had to preserve his Grace as much as he could, lest Castiel be killed. Castiel could not wrap himself in his wings, lest something see them, something that could get Castiel killed. He could not go back to the Winchesters to talk, because that would distract Castiel from his self-appointed mission and get Sam and Dean killed. He could not fold all of himself inside his vessel and watch it fall to its knees and just be immobile for an age, because that would just waste time, because the world was running out of time as it were, and all of them would be killed.

What Castiel wanted was irrelevant.

What Castiel needed was irrelevant.

What Castiel did was that he smoothed out his Grace, and tried to think about what he could do, because despairing would not help him. Because that was the only thing Castiel could do without starting at zero again. His situation was starting to feel Sisyphean… Castiel instantly squashed that trail of thought. What Castiel had, aside from woefully inadequate resources, was still his angelhood, as much as the circumstances allowed him. And angels did not get tired, only bored—the latter being a luxury Castiel could not afford. So he sat down and turned over the problem in his mind for hours and hours, until it was dawn, then midday.

 _I have three components. Do I?_ , he ruminated, _do I really?_

It was a spell of threes, and so it was best to do everything in threes.

 _For Vritra I have the hymn, the staff, the soil. But the Indus soil is working for two; it’s my anchor—unless it could work for three; but for two… it doesn’t add up_.

With a flash of insight, he drew another concentric circle, a bigger one around his other two. But, instead of drawing it with a stick, unlike the other two, he drew it with the silver staff, and with the silver staff—the mother—he wrote in the new annulus an old poem Inias had once heard that detailed all of the Danavas: Vritra’s clan, descended directly from Danu, The Sea. He edited the poem, for Castiel wrote all the _true_ Danavas Castiel was aware of, not the bloated lists the humans kept.

Those added to two paeans, Castiel knew, but the spell had _three_ incantations now, for the Enochian was one, Vritra’s was another, and that of the Danavas the last one. The spell now had three circles, so it _felt_ a lot more stable, as well, plus Vritra’s ‘belongings’ had three components by themselves. Castiel knew the spell was weaker now, as well, but it was stable, and it felt _right_ … And it would have to do.

Castiel did not have much hope for this attempt, not after what had happened to the one beforehand. He thought of all the places he could check out later in order to find his Father, but Castiel still had to try this ‘fixed’ spell, since there was not much else to do.

The rebel angel chanted again.

And waited.

And waited.

To Castiel’s surprise, a day and a half later, the murky waters of the dry delta started to waver in circles. The waters parted with a splash. Observing the summoning circle was the green dragon; a long, serpentine, many-fanged creature that looked puzzled due to the seemingly absentee summoner. His scales were the green of mango leaves, and were arranged on his body as if the leaves themselves were superimposed in patterns. They looked sharp, his scale armor a sheath so aggressive it looked as if it could skin rocks raw just by slythering over them.

‘Vritra’, said Castiel as he emerged between the scrubs he was hiding in.

Vritra’s body was about one-and-a-half of Castiel’s vessel in diameter, shoulder to shoulder. Even his ‘soft’ belly looked like it could take a beating.

‘No appropriate greetings, mortal?’

Castiel’s vessel scoffed openly. After all this hardship, the mockery of a god he would have been able to smite not even half-powered was nothing. This offended the dragon.

‘You’re forgetting yourself!’, the dragon snapped with his jaws, wading through the waters to enclose Castiel’s vessel, to make the small-fry ‘mortal’ feel smaller and to make him cower. The body scales that caught the delta’s silt as Vritra made his motions looked slimy, with a disgusting colour.

Castiel’s fire was being extinguished by the blows of time, by its lack of fuel since he was cut off from Heaven. Vritra had some power, with a strong body and a wicked mind, and could kill Castiel on a whim—Castiel would escape before that could happen, of course, but it rattled the angel that he was so weak. But Vritra did not know that. Possession of information was, and always had been, the ultimate war game.

 _I am bluffing these days more than I’d like_.

His emotions—his frustration, near-desolation—were seeping into the air, but Vritra was too young a god, so he definitely was deaf to them.

‘No, Vritra’. His angel blade twirled in one of his vessel’s hands. Castiel could not bring himself to quieten his vessel’s heartbeat. ‘You’re the one that’s forgetting himself’.

Castiel swiped it down casually; the blade scratched some of Vritra’s scales. It did not hurt him, not at all, but it did let him feel the divinity in its cut. Vritra roared with outrage, his fangs glinting under the blazing sun, then gave Castiel a wide berth, the yellow lizard-snout puffing heavily.

‘What are you doing here summoning me, winged abomination?’

Castiel delayed the answer to that question. Instead, he went and picked up the silver staff from the summoning circle and put it back on the inner pocket of his vessel’s overcoat. Only then did Castiel’s vessel turn in order to address Vritra.

‘Stop making an spectacle of yourself’. Castiel picked up the soma from another point of the circle, as well as the clay vase, and offered it to him. ‘Danu sends her regards’.

The dragon bristled, his dark green scales glittered and then snaked up his body to his nape, until what was in front of Castiel was a rather ordinary-looking man, with no shirt, an oppulent gold necklace, and a yellow sarong. The man sported an exceptionally angry face, scowling, and bared his filed teeth at Castiel.

‘I don’t want to antagonise you’, Castiel said as he put away his blade.

‘Mother sent you!’, he accused.

Castiel was not going to disabuse him of that notion.

‘Finding you wasn’t as hard as I thought’.

A technical truth; Castiel did not think he would find Vritra at all, so of course it had been easier when it turned out Castiel had found him.

‘What does the witch want?’

Castiel poured him soma and offered it to him. Vritra took it.

‘Do you know where Suvarnamatsya is?

Vritra looked at him. Now, with his mouth closed, the only inhuman parts in his body were his unsettling yellow eyes set on orange bile.

‘So, she finally has set her head on straight’.

Castiel’s vessel tilted its head when he heard that statement; such an odd thing to say. He did not comment on it, however. Things were finally going his way and Castiel was not going to spoil it.

‘Vritra’, Castiel prompted him.

‘She’s with her father, Ravana, at his fortress’.

‘Ravana still lives in Lanka?’

‘It was a long reconquest for the poor sap, what can I tell you’.

‘I shall be going, then. Enjoy your soma’, Castiel excused himself amicably.

Vritra swayed the vase, smelt it. Satisfied by this examination, he sipped it.

‘Not bad, fancy-feathers. Tastes just like when they made it in the old days’.

He regarded the vase with newfound respect.

‘I remember’.

‘You have more?’

 _Vritra is too interested to let this chance slip_.

‘I could make more’, Castiel stated as he handed Vritra the bottle, ‘for a suitable price’.

The yellow closed, deep in thought. Vritra poured himself more drink, and then gulped it down straight away.

‘You know, the devas have never made it properly since Lakshmi got killed’.

Castiel was taken aback.

‘She’s dead?’.

‘Turns out Dayisud and his soldiers are toughs sons of bitches’.

The bottle of the sacred drink turned in Vritra’s hands. Symbols, deeds; all these things gave pagan gods more power, and what a powerful symbol soma was to Vritra.

‘I can take you’.

‘To Lanka?’ Castiel’s surprise could be heard in the voice he made his vessel speak with. ‘I can get there on my own just fine’.

‘No. To Ravana’s abode. He’s hidden it and it’s in the mortal world’. Then he added, his voice dripping with sarcasm: ‘He thinks he’s cunning’.

Castiel thought about it.

‘Very well’.

Castiel extended his wings, which Vritra side-eyed, before Vritra focused back on his task.

‘Where shall we be going?’

‘To Koneswaram Temple. No subtlety, that asura’.

Castiel grabbed Vritra’s shoulder, and flew. He enjoyed the warm summer currents during the brief time he was in the air. Vritra looked disoriented when they landed.

‘See, this is why I call you winged abominations. This isn’t a sane way of travelling!’

‘You’re just too slow’, Castiel dismissed.

‘Where are we?’

They were surrounded by a great deal of trees with yellow leaves. At their side there was a cobbled road, and the murmur of the sea could be heard from afar.

‘Trincomalee Cliff. I thought it would be a bad idea to land directly inside the temple. There might be visitors’, pointed out Castiel when faced with Vritra’s disbelief.

Vritra stepped into another plane, and Castiel followed him. Vritra still had to move around his head some more to get his bearings. When he was reassured of his location, however, he went up the concrete staircase made on top of the red rock, ascending until they were in a great, flat, somewhat square-shaped, white outer courtyard. There were some humans milling about. Right in front of them there was the temple, standing further to the back after some steps that were like a raised dais for the temple complex. Koneswaram Temple had highly detailed roofs that resembled a step pyramid. The temple was beautiful and cozy, white everywhere but for the colourful red and gold entrance to the main temple complex.

Vritra ignored the small marvel of a temple, and just went past some big doors to the left, that led into the temple’s inner courtyard. Two beautiful women, one dark, one light, came forward to meet them on nimble steps. They just had sarongs on them, as had been the custom in Sri Lanka a long time ago. The long pearl necklaces ended nesting inside their full bossoms, their lustrous hair shone with oils, fragrant. In their arms were all sorts of bracelets, each with a single gold triangle. They were beautiful and, Castiel supposed, enticing to mortals and gods.

‘Lord Vritra’, bowed the two apsaras. ‘Who’s your handsome friend?’

As soon as the words ‘a visitor’ poured out of their mouths, a cavalcade of more apsaras came, curious to see the new arrivals. Each spirit seemed more beautiful than the last.

‘Well, well’, inspected them Vritra. ‘How about you and me’, and he wrapped a hand around the slim waist of the light-skinned maiden because she was closer, ‘go have some fun while you’, he pointed out Castiel to her sister, ‘show our friend to Suvarnamatsya?’

The dark-skinned apsara turned to Castiel.

‘Why would he want to see the Mistress of the house?’

‘Something, something, from Danu. Don’t know, don’t care. Got myself a pretty good deal bringing him here’. He stroked the maiden’s chestnut hair, and the apsara giggled.

‘Then, follow me’, the other maiden addressed Castiel.

They went back further out to the courtyard of the temple, until the very wall. There was a spell on the wall; where the common human would see a perfect wall of white blocks, its real appearance revealed that the wall had crumbled in one section. The apsara stepped right over it, not minding it, and so Castiel followed her until the edge of the rocky platform that supported the temple. To his left there were more trees, and to his right was the orange-brown cliff’s edge, which towered several hundred feet from the sea. The apsara skipped down, as if she was supported by a cloud, until she was gliding down the small forest on the left side. Castiel followed, without hesitation.

‘Take this’, she told him.

She slid out a golden bracelet from an arm with the same triangular piece of gold.

 _Not gold_ , noted Castiel. _A scale_.

Castiel put on the bracelet. The apsara then jumped easily onto a ledge, almost floating. The apsara were creatures of air and water, and danced to the sound of storms. Castiel, too, was meant to be airborne, and so he jumped easily on to the ledge, as well. They trailed the face of the cliff for a bit, until the apsara reached a cave.

 _A spell_ , Castiel realised. More smoke and mirrors that hid some part of reality from those who did not possess the seeing gift . When he entered, easily, the scale on the bracelet had shone for a little while, activating maybe a boundary of some sort. Inside was like a well-heeled court of old, with the attending ladies in the back, tables with feasts on them, silken interiors and rich tapestries hanging from the wall that depicted Hanuman.

‘Ratni’, said another topless woman lounging in a shallow pool in the centre of the room, as she lilted the last syllable. ‘Who’s this visitor of yours?’

The woman turned to see them, interested. She was just as beautiful as the apsaras as well, although of a different sort of beauty; quite a bit more monstruous. Her bronze skin seemed to almost glow, and the whites of her eyes had a near acquamarine tinge to them. Her eyes were brown, warm like black tea. But she had no legs but a fishtail, whose caudal fin, soaking in the pool, looked so diaphanous one could have mistaken it for gauze cloth underwater. The golden scales covered her lower parts and ascended all the way to her sides and between her breasts. She had golden claws as well, that she was using to eat delicately some _naan_ bread. The pearls and pendants of her necklaces clinked with each movement she made.

‘Lord Vritra brought him here, Mistress Suvarnamatsya’.

‘Ah, so the lecherous bastard came here as well. Excellent!’ She sounded sincerely delighted, and ate the rest of the bread. She crawled on her hands to take a better look at Castiel. When she did so, her dark hair fell to the sides of her back. She had a ridge in the scales there. ‘Send him down later. Your business, stranger?’.

‘Lord Vritra said he had a message from Danu’.

‘Finally the old hag came to her senses, I see’.

There it was again that puzzling statement.

Castiel simply extended the silver staff. The hieroglyphs instantly changed to Brahmi, surprising them both. She read it. Her brow creased more and more the further she read along, until she scowled.

‘Oh, that’s just _typical_ ; she only sends her regards to call me an idiot and to give me orders I can’t disobey’. She beckoned Castiel to her side, and took his vessel by the jaw. ‘At least she sent someone pretty’. She let the vessel’s jaw go. ‘Well, then, Mr. Obviously-Not-a-Mortal, let me tell you about that one time I met the Narayana’.

The chestnut-haired apsara came down, looking harried. She whispered to Suvarnamatsya’s ear. Castiel ignored it. This was it, this was the moment Castiel dreaded and loved, feared and desired every time he had a lead on his Father: the moment his hopes felt justified whenever he found out a lead on His location.

‘Why don’t we go outside?’

Castiel furrowed his brow at the strange suggestion, because the fish-woman seemed perfectly comfortable in her pool, but let it go. If he was going to get answers, he could very well wait a little longer and bear another’s eccentricities. Suvarnamatsya rose, her legs misshappen things—she was a creature of water, not of land. She walked, swayed. She continued to stumble to the edge of the cave, then threw herself off. Castiel dove into the sea, and swam to the lowest rock that was in front of them that protruded out of the waters. Both him and Suvarnamatsya climbed it. Suvarnamatsya laid content, exposed atop the the rock, as she enjoyed the sun. She turned her face to see Castiel.

‘I was in Old Goa, back when people called it Golden Goa. As usual, there were Portuguese ships in the harbour, and I was having fun at the docks. Sometimes, I snatched up a handsome sailor or two, to enjoy myself. They were all different, although, I do miss the Arabs, you know. They liked poetry. One of the Portuguese sailors I was watching excused himself from the others, and talked to me in Sinhalese’. All of Castiel’s attention centred on her with baited breath. Suvarnamatsya trailed a languid hand up his vessel’s arm. ‘He asked me what was I doing so far from home and then introduced himself. Handsome and awkward… He had some jewellery. Earrings, like most sailors. But also a bracelet on him, very curious’.

Suvarnamatsya laid on her side. A claw started to scratch the rock.

‘The bracelet was of beads, but the medallion, the medallion was so fascinating. It had a symbol just like this. I hadn’t seen a symbol with that before. Well. Not quite’.

It was as if a person had plucked one of the halves of the ying-yang symbol, copied it two times more, then stuck the head on the curved part of the other ying-yang half, until one had something like a closed triangle with all the three parts arranged.

 _A triskele_.

‘He also looked a bit like you, you know’.

‘What do you mean?’

In that moment, the dark-haired apsara descended, floating down as if it were a feather in the wind. She handed a piece of paper to Suvarnamatsya, who smiled very pleased.

‘He had a beard. But he also had black hair and blue eyes, just like you. How weird that your current vessel looks a bit like your daddy did back then, isn’t it?’

Castiel flung Suvarnamatsya’s hand away from him with his mind.

‘That wasn’t in the staff. How do you know that?’

‘That’s right, Castiel’.

Castiel stood up, frantic.

‘I suppose the mysterious bitch never told you why she and I are not talking, did she?’

Castiel’s vessel wielded his angel blade.

‘You see, cutie’, her torso turned, her breasts now laid on top of the hot rocks while she still held the paper in her hand, ‘Danu and me disagree on this whole end-of-the-world business. She just wants you all to stop. I, for one, am not an idiot, and know we are pretty useless at stopping the lot of you’.

She laid the paper on top of the rock. Castiel took a bit of time to puzzle out the spell written on it with newborn’s blood. It was a significantly simplified spell.

‘I decided to throw my lot with your dear siblings’.

‘They’re going to end the world’, Castiel replied, aghast.

‘Most of it, more like. And I’d rather take a mostly devastated world and some of my worshippers, my people, alive, than whatever disaster The Morningstar is going to unleash on Earth’.

 _It’s a beacon_.

An Enochian beacon spell.

‘Imagine my surprise when one of my handmaidens comes to me to tell me she’s called your people. Because Vritra talks too much to my handmaidens, while they’re having _fun_ , to get all their bits wet with a little bit of poetic talk apsaras like so much. And he described this black-haired, blue-eyed winged one with wings all the colours of the ocean on top, and a sunset on the lower part, that he had brought here to meet me; and that sounds, I don’t know, just a little bit similar to this rebel Zephaniah had told me about when he briefed me. None of us actually expected you to show up at my place. I especially didn’t expect _anyone_ to be looking for those stupid old memories of the Narayana, no less, but here you are. Your siblings are going to find this very interesting’.

Castiel extended his wings.

‘Hello, brother’.

Castiel true sight looked up.

Standing on the other rocks, further back, there were five other angels. The leader was in a dark-skinned vessel, a rather handsome old man dressed in a simple white shirt, denim trousers and sandals, with wings edged by gold that were a solid black and pink, the pink patterning itself in interesting arrangements over the black. Bubbling from beneath in unexpected satisfaction, his Grace tasted a bit sour, but clean and smooth as mother-of-pearl.

But the one that made Castiel’s fright come to his vessel’s face—still fixated on Suvarnamatsya—was Ithuriel, who he did recognise, with her luminiscent orange coverts. Castiel knew, although he could not see the back of her wings when he was facing her vessel, that the feathers closest to her back were an almost-red dark orange, then the orange colour faded gloriously like dusk, from the sky to the sun, until it was a pastel orange in the edges of the flight feathers farthest from her vessel. Her vessel was a Tibetan woman of classic plateau-red cheeks in a pencil skirt, low-cut top, and low shoes. Because Ithuriel was one of the fastest fighters Castiel knew; her pretty wings almost screamed her ability at Castiel with their sharpness and streamlined silhouette. She, in fact, was much faster flying than Castiel—although the honour of being the fastest angel belonged to the well-named Baraqiel.

 _I have no advantages_.

Castiel had no options but to escape, and attempt escape he did. He took to the air and bolted, the Indic Ocean becoming a blur. However, Ithuriel was right there, dogging his steps, gaining distance on him, angel blade in her hand, until he was forced to turn and feint and parry and scuffle with her while flying. Castiel knew every second he spent struggling with Ithuriel, was one more second he was at disadvantage, and his other, slower siblings could catch up to him. But if he did not fight off Ithuriel, she was going stab him to death.

Indeed, the others caught up, and one got Castiel on one of his vessel’s side. It was painful. It did not damage his Grace but it was an angel’s Grace that had whipped him and so it was painful.

 _There must be something_.

The other angels surrounded him and one of his siblings—bittersweet Grace with a touch of summer’s rainfall, and brown and blue wings of a short wingspan, its feathers with silver shafts—twisted one of Castiel’s wings away from his vessel. Castiel fell in the air, not being able to fly upwards with just one wing; then the wing his brother had grabbed tensed, the flight feathers spread out in pain. Castiel screamed; he was dangling from his wing, its companion flapped around wildly. Unfolding more wings would only just give his siblings more points to torture him with, and give away his one trump card.

Another sibling with ochre-tipped mahogany wings tried to stab him, and Castiel did his best to contort and parry him. The movement ripped another scream from him, his true voice igniting a rumbling in nearby clouds. Desperate not to suffer anymore, Castiel flailed wildly his free wing so that his brothers could not grab it and twist it, like his brown-winged brother was doing with his left wing.

In the middle of his pain, Castiel thought of Dean and Sam and Robert Singer, and how they managed to get by only with their wits, no especial powers required. Truly remarkable humans.

 _My work here isn’t done yet_.

His siblings may have been at full power, but they were still malachim. And Castiel was weak, but his Father had still raised him to the ranks of the Seraphim, and there was _something_ he could do, that came innately to him now, and he could do it in an instant before Ithuriel stabbed him to death as she was preparing to do just now.

His Grace concentrated in his wings, with intent to harm more than Castiel had ever wanted to before; not like when he fought with demons and just wanted to distract them to give the twisted beings a well-deserved stabbing, or when he fought with other angels and swatted them so they kept their distance. His wings burnt with all of his inner fire, hotter than what any malach could hope to achieve even if they could mimmick the same movement by spending Grace to do so. His wing suddenly was free; Castiel was falling, and his siblings backtracked to observe him better. Castiel felt pity for his brother, since his brother had **shrieked** , a ghastly sound that distorted what Castiel could tell was the other angel’s lovely true voice, his vessel’s hand with its raw muscles and joints apparent. Castiel could not imagine what his brother’s Grace must have looked like, roiling with hurt.

The leader, outraged at what Castiel had dared to do, screamed as if to scold him: WHAT A WASTE OF GRACE, BROTHER!

No, for a Seraph it was not.

I’LL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT, Castiel retorted as he tossed the golden bracelet aside, lest it be some sort of tracker.

Then he twisted his body and _dove_. Ithuriel dove for him as well. But Castiel had expected that and, as he changed directions, he moved himself to the human plane so Ithuriel got discomfitted and dove right past him. This would not last long, Castiel knew.

There was a place Castiel knew better than any of them, that could give him an advantage back, however small it was.

Castiel’s Grace smiled so brightly, it was reflected in his vessel’s face, a plan suddenly becoming clear in his head.

And so Castiel fell into Hell.

And crashed.

Most angels preferred to be in their true forms in Hell, Castiel being one of them. But he could not spare his Grace to seal his vessel within himself, and so he trudged up along the side of the rocky landscape with this borrowed, small human form, even folding his wings inside of his vessel to make himself as difficult to find as possible. It was a blessing in disguise, being his vessel hidden from most prying eyes, and so small the disorienting, noxious nature of Hell would make it… Hell for his siblings to find him.

Castiel had fought for forty years in Hell to get to The Righteous Man, while his siblings kept dying and dying. Castiel probably knew Hell better than most angels currently alive, bar Lucifer. Hell was terribly disorienting for angels, although Castiel supposed that, thanks to the ease with which he himself navigated the hellish landscape, after a few decades one grew rather used to Hell. Castiel knew there was a cave near the place he had chosen to crash down, because his now dead subcaptain, Esther, had smitten some demons that dwelt there herself as they had pressed their advance as they combed Hell. So, while the heavenly forms of his siblings covered the hellish yellow sky, their light blotting out the ash in the air, Castiel skulked unseen among rock formations, volcanic cones, and shrubs, with his blade in his vessel’s hand, ready to fight off any troublesome demons.

The cave was empty; the lingering purity must have given any demons the jitters, and scared them off.

Inside, Castiel let his vessel fall to the floor, finally letting himself succumb to his vessel’s wounds. They affected him so closely because he could not just will his vessel’s pain away from his conscience anymore—Castiel really was becoming shackled to that fragile mortal shell. Castiel did not want to spend his Grace on his vessel to heal its broken rib, the scraps under its pants, its dislocated arms, the cracked vertebrae, and so on… Thankfully, he still had enough Grace in him that his vessel just healed faster and more perfectly than human bodies were capable of. The only thing that was left for him to do was to lie down and rest.

 _I can rest_ , Castiel realised with a jolt.

Castiel had had several forays into Hell under Anael’s command when Lucifer had just rebelled, and several times more the next thousands of years, but never for so long as when the Host had looked for Dean Winchester in Hell. Castiel had come to hate it, for the feathers of his siblings littered the place. Demons may be completely outmatched by angels, and angels did not need to rest, but when they were thousands and thousands of demons fighting angels every day, one demon was bound to catch a single angel off their guard. Castiel hated this place, but Hell ran ten years for every month on Earth, so if, for some six hours or half a day, he absented himself topside for a month or two Hell-side… The world would not go to Hell—it was already half way there already. It was something best not repeated, even though, right now, Hell was the safest place for him to recover..

 _I can’t go back to Heaven ever again_.

The final acknowledgement of this truth pained Castiel more than he thought it would.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Oporto was an old city, with an even older past. Castiel walked down the avenue, going past the park to his left. To his right, the Douro river. The Passeio Alegre Park must have been beautiful in spring, but right now, midwinter, the trees looked bare. Next up was an intersection, and now quaint two-story houses were to his left, as Castiel went east. Not much further from there, by his right, there was the old lighthouse by the river. The Lighthouse of São Miguel-o-Anjo was in a small piece of land that went into the river, almost like a land bulwark the city itself had built there for the sake of sailors past.

Castiel went past the palms and the frosty grass, and walked along its border. There were there breakwater rocks that Castiel’s vessel climbed down, until he sat down on one near the tip of the bulwark, with the vast, dark waters of the Douro at his feet. His vessel bent down, its hand touched the water. Castiel was in a plane where he would go unnoticed, so he was not worried about humans seeing him. Nevertheless, he had picked a fairly low-key location to avoid any demon encounters. His Grace coated his vessel’s hand, which made the water under it shine so much it would hurt to look at. A call, of sorts.

Two hands landed on one flat rock a couple yards from Castiel, and Castiel raised his hand from the waters. A figure rose up; a completely soaked man stared at him warily, and sat down on the rocks, his long black hair sporting several plaits, with black iron bracelets and pale skin. His eyes were the same grey steel was.

‘Why you’re calling for me?’

‘Hello, Duria’.

‘You can’t kill me so long I’m in here’.

His legs were half into the water, his black mantle, clasped with silver pins to his rough robe, was so long it flowed gently downriver.

‘I didn’t come here looking to kill you’.

‘That’d be a first, Heavenchild’.

‘I was hoping you could help me with something, rather’.

‘I am not feeling charitable towards any of you’.

‘I wouldn’t know what to give you’.

It was true. Nature spirits were difficult, even ones as old and constant as this wide river that flowed through the Iberian peninsula, that the pre-Roman peoples of this land had deified. Duria looked at Castiel curiously, trying to see beyond his wards and his human visage.

‘I’ll admit, you make me curious. But nothing comes for free. So how about you tell me your question, and then we set the price for my answer?’

Castiel thought about it for a bit.

‘Both parties have to agree the price is equal’. Duria’s stern face did not smile. He just gestured at Castiel, signalling his agreement. ‘Have you ever had contact with a man, bearded, with black hair and blue eyes t—?’

‘I know all the people in my shores’, Duria cut in.

Castiel felt annoyed at that.

‘I know’.

‘That description fits an awful lot of people who live currently here’.

‘True. But I’m not looking for someone currently living here. Think back to the turn of the seventeenth century’.

‘Well, now. This is an interesting enquiry’.

Duria settled better in the breakwater rocks, and fixated his gaze completely on him, the steel in his eyes glinting for the first time.

‘It would be someone old, powerful; who, at some point before that moment, might have been friendly with any of the local gods. Probably sporting a male face’.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I retraced His steps’.

‘On what evidence?’, pressed Duria.

His vessel’s face frowned slightly.

‘A bracelet with a triskele medallion’.

Duria laughed. He put his elbow on his lap, in a meditative pose.

‘Pretty flimsy evidence’.

‘A Celtic symbol worn by a seventeenth-century Portuguese sailor? No, Duria’. Castiel turned to look at the body of water that contained the spirit talking to him. ‘Oporto was one of the greatest ports of Portugal at the time, I know this, and we still remember when the Lusitanian Turduli had the run of the place before they were conquered’.

Duria huffed with a half-smile on his face.

‘Well, well. A smarty pants. You got me, I was the one who gave that to him. What is he?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘I suppose not. He preferred human company, but he did come down and have a chat with me once in a while. He isn’t Germanic, by any chance?’

‘He goes a lot further back’.

 _To before the beginning of the Universe_.

‘And here I was, thinking I had talked to Wotan, or something. “Carlos”. What an unassuming name he had, too!’

Duria and Castiel stayed, in companionable silence, to watch the early winter sunset.

‘Do you know where he went? Did he come back here or—?’

‘Now I set my price’.

Castiel looked heavenwards.

‘What would a river want?’

‘I long for company. Bring me back the spring’.

‘You have an inflated view of our powers’.

‘Ataegina’.

‘I see. Where is she?’

‘Cymru, I was told. It isn’t exactly safe for me to leave my body, anymore’. He looked at the waters, sadly. ‘She went to investigate what the fiends were doing there’.

‘It’s unusual of a goddess to do that’.

‘Quite. But they did in Borvo as a sacrifice for _something_ , so it’s a bit worrying she hasn’t come back yet. When she’s back safe, I shall contact you’.

‘Do you even know how to summon me?’

‘No. But I am promising. I swear to you, on this body of mine…’ Duria scooped some water in his hand. All of a sudden, Duria was the whole river, not just the embodiment seated across him. It was not the might of being able to carve the land on a whim, but it was vast, its consciousness an enigma. ‘That I shall contact you as soon as Ataegina gets back to me’.

 _You really must esteem her_.

‘We have a deal’.

Castiel held his angel blade in his vessel’s hand.

‘Look closely, Duria’. He scratched some marks on a rock between the two of them. ‘This is how you summon a messenger of the Lord Most High when you have no prayers to give. On a flat surface of a sacred place paint this with ash’.

‘You must really want that information, if you’re giving me this’.

The river was taken aback when Duria saw his vessel’s face smirk.

‘Leave your delusions aside, Duria. I am giving away nothing. Because, for this summons to work, you’re going to need this’.

One of Castiel’s wings emerged from his vessel’s back, shimmering against the encroaching darkness of the night. Duria watched it closely.

‘Amazing’, the river breathed, watching the feathers shimmer in their silver edges as Castiel ran one hand through them. Castiel was utterly indifferent to compliments. Then, one of them was plucked, still perfect and shining. It was one from as close to his shoulder blades as possible. The faint dots of light, and the artificial lighting of the streets shone just enough light by themselves that Duria could see that the small feather had a pale sky blue or, maybe, a grey colour to it.

‘Burn it when you perform the summoning. I shall feel you, and I’ll come to you’.

‘It’s almost a shame to burn it’. Duria fingered the silver edge, examining closely the shimmer dots. ‘Bird feathers aren’t anything like this’.

‘We’re not _birds_ ’.

Castiel put away his wing, not willing to have his wing out in the open more than he absolutely had to.

‘You can feel the power in one of these’.

Castiel, however, had a more pressing matter to inquire about.

‘What if she isn’t alive?’

‘I shall consider myself well-served with proof of her death’.

‘That’s… not always possible when it comes to gods’.

‘That is not my problem, Heavenchild. In any case, I consider my time well-spent, as well, by you giving me this fine gift, but don’t expect me to do anything else for you if you don’t get me what I desire’.

Castiel’s Grace simmered unhappily.

‘No time like the present, then’.

Castiel, thus, found himself flying to Wales in a dark December night. He decided to go to its capital, Cardiff, because he might as well start with a heavily populated centre before branching out, so he landed by the harbour and took in the fairly beautiful sight of Cardiff’s skyline emerging from within the fog of the winter night. He walked for a bit past the lonely piers, thinking hard of a plan. _I don’t have time to comb over an entire country_. Because Castiel doubted he would be able to stop at Wales.

In the next few days, Castiel found no sign of old spirits, or of witches, milling about Cardiff. Witches could have been useful. What he did find was a disturbing amount of demon activity, which made Castiel queasy. Now, he did not know exactly what demons had been doing, but there were an awful lot of demons pullulating the wide streets, blending among humans who did not know better.

 _The Welsh hunter population must’ve taken a hit_.

Just as they had managed to keep the stories of their old gods alive, the Welsh occult-aficionados had proved themselves capable lore-keepers. If anything, this demonic presence disturbed Castiel even more than usual. He was grateful his vessel’s overcoat, for once, helped him blend in, but he mostly stayed out of demons’ sights, trudging up and down Cardiff—he did not dare fly amidst all this demon infestation.

It was bound to happen at some point that Castiel spotted a group of demons, carrying items of power in briefcases, that looked around bored in Cardiff Central Bus Station. Rows upon rows of bus stops were lined up in parallel lines, with their coloured curved roofs that announced the bus routes. Evidently, he was going to need Welsh money for this. _The Welsh use sterling pounds, don’t they?_ Castiel turned around and dashed towards the closest bank. He had seen it while doing his rounds around the city; it had been one called ‘Allied Irish Bank’.

The bank’s building itself was a drab rectangle with more windows than Castiel thought advisable for Welsh weather. Castiel was pleased it was already closed. He scanned the area for demons. When he was satisfied there were none, he extended his wings and flew into the bank, in a plane unseen. Castiel felt a bit sorry for the human tellers that would have to deal with his mess in the vault, but did not care much for the hysterical newspaper headlines the humans would dream up the next day. He still had enough strength to will open the small doors that hid the cash. Castiel would not need much. He may not have known the convoluted ways in which humans determined the prices of all of their goods, but he had noticed enough to know that probably twenty pounds would do.

_What are the small denominations here?_

The alarm blared. To Castiel, it was inconsequential. He knew he could not be seen. A ruckus would probably form outside. His vessel crouched. Castiel inspected the coins and pound bills that littered the floor. Once he was satisfied he understood how these humans had arranged the value of their currency, he took in a little bit of everything until it totalled exactly twenty pounds, and flew outside again. He was still in another plane, and the police started to arrive. How different the local police looked from their counterparts in Dean and Sam’s country, stepping out of the police cars with bowler hats, dressed all in black and in neon-green waistcoats. Thus, he returned to Cardiff Central Station praying fervently to his Father that the demons were still there. He had not taken very long, but he had not had the best of luck lately. Thankfully, they were still there, in the bus stop at the station for Route B.

‘You nearly don’t catch the bus, mate’, the bus driver said to him. Castiel looked at the price and handed over the correct amount.

‘Thank you for your concern’, he replied in a perfect Cardiff accent. An accent from the United States would have stood out too much, so he had suppressed James Novak’s accent.

Castiel had waited until the bus arrived; only at the last second did he dare enter, and sat next to a window. He put his vessel’s hand horizontally to the back of the next seat, and rested his vessel’s head there. Now, Castiel did not know that this was sort of pretending to be asleep, but what he did know was that he wanted to keep the demons from seeing his vessel’s face. If things were as disturbing as he thought they might be, then he wanted to keep lying as low as possible. In Caerphilly, the demons got off, and so Castiel did too, trailing them. Caerphilly’s small bus station had long, triangular zinc roofs that reminded Castiel of the thatched longhouses of the vikings.

Like in Oporto, the streets were not as wide as he was used as seeing in the United States, but they were well-asphalted with ample pavement for pedestrians.

The demons turned left, to go up the road, northwards. He pretended to go right, past the line of quaint townhouses with small front gardens that had both doors and window sills painted white. His true sight never lost track of the demons. As soon as they were at a sufficient distance, he stopped, waited, and turned to follow them. A drizzle started to fall, as was par the course for Welsh weather. The demons turned left from the main road to go down a street with run-down stores and two-story buildings on both sides that looked like decrepit townhouses—unlike the ones near the bus station. After some point, Castiel did not have to keep following them. His dull senses had picked up the great evil, a festering wound, that had been inflicted on this land.

Thus Castiel staked out the area, and kept away from demons.

A small house, one brightly spruced up in comparison to the others, stood out thanks to the Enochian sigils to keep angels away painted on its outer walls. Demons did not go in and out every other day, but they did do it with enough frequency Castiel was able to determine their routine and pick out the day he believed there were less demons in, in order to break in. What he needed to do to break the sigils would blow his cover straight away, anyway, so Castiel needed to tilt the odds as much in his favour as he could.

So Castiel bombed the façade with what, later on, the police would call an ‘IED’—Improvised Explosive Device.

Of course he did. A supernatural method to disarm the sigils would have taken Castiel too long.

And Sam and Dean were not there to help him out with that part.

Naturally, that caused an uproar up and down the street, frantic shouts and hysterical humans running out of the neighbouring houses could be heard all along it. While understandable, Castiel paid them no mind. One demon jumped out of the window when he saw Castiel, and Castiel knifed the creature so fast it toppled over dead. Castiel spread his wings out and stepped inside the house.

Castiel saw Enochian sigils that glowed angrily in one of the upper planes. The sigils could ground an angel, but they were not powered up, or their effect had worn off, for Castiel was only flightless inside the house. There were smears of blood everywhere, and, dangling from meathooks in the centre of the living room, a feminine figure. A pale woman with long dark hair and several cuts on her naked skin was there. Other men and children and a young woman were tied up to the side, gagged.

‘You’re alright now’, Castiel told them, when he cut their bindings.

‘Oh my God! Are you _American_? The hell—’

Castiel’s vessel was flung into another wall, falling into a table. The humans shrieked and tried to make themselves smaller.

‘Look at what we’ve here’. A demon sauntered through the hallway, eyes blackened. ‘Heaven’s very own rebel without a cause’.

The woman groaned as Castiel struggled to stand up. She spoke in Welsh.

‘What’s going on?’

 _She should be going in shock_.

Castiel did not dare to hope, but…

‘Ataegina?’

The weakened goddess opened her eyes.

‘ _Oh_ , a child of heaven’, she mumbled.

 _I need to kill that demon_.

Castiel grabbed the table and threw it to the demon, but the demon cast it aside. This, however, allowed Castiel to get closer, and the demon had to feint Castiel’s strike.

‘Not without a cause, no’.

Castiel swept her feet off and, with all of his vessel’s weight, stabbed his angel blade through the demon’s brow. The skull caved in.

‘Go!’, he snapped at the humans.

‘Are you going to be alright, sir?’, asked one of the kids.

‘Just go!’

‘Oh, no’, entered a demon from the smoking scene that used to be the wall, ‘I’m afraid we can’t have that’.

‘Oh, Lord!’, screeched one of the teenagers.

‘He’s not listening, darling’.

‘Angel’, whispered Ataegina, this time in English.

Castiel, could only shout ‘I’m listening!’, while he side-stepped another demon, smacked her with one of his wings and sank his blade into one of the demon’s lungs. The lifeless body fell to the floor, only for Castiel to face three more demons. The demon that had stepped through the window had thrown the humans into the opposing wall.

‘I can protect them if you lower me’.

_How am I supposed to do that?_

One of the demons, a redhead, elbowed his vessel. His vessel staggered backwards, but managed to grab a bookshelf for balance, and swiped his blade in front of his vessel to force them to keep their distance.

 _The bookshelf_ , Castiel realised. The body he was in stepped to the side again, always trying to keep the demons at bay. After Castiel got out of the bookshelf’s way, he made it dart, pushing the demons against the other wall. Castiel strode up to Ataegina’s dangling body, put two arms around her thighs, and brought her down. She tried to stand on her own, but plummeted. The tall demon was escorting the humans to the back of the house.

‘Regna terræ, cantate deo, psállite dómino, tribuitem virtutem deo…!’, chanted Castiel.

The demons started to writhe on the floor.

‘Exorcizamos te, omnis immundus spiritus…!’

It was an angel commanding them in perfect Latin, after all.

‘… omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii…!’

He hauled Ataegina to her feet, to drag her towards where the humans were seeing everything. Two of them, a young woman and a teenage boy, were numb with shock. The children were crying. The men were shivering, darting their eyes around, muttering questions and admittances of delusion under their breath.

‘… omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica…!’

Castiel had to cut himself off, however, because he had to speak.

‘Take her!’, Castiel told the humans. ‘She’ll help you!’

He threw the naked goddess in the arms of one of the men.

‘How? She’s dyin—’

Castiel ignored him, and cut in.

‘Ataegina’. Ataegina managed to open her eyes and focus on him. ‘Ataegina, listen to me. You _must_ go to Duria’.

‘Duria?’

‘Yes’, hissed Castiel.

One of the demons had recovered and threw himself against Castiel, straddling his vessel. Then he punched Castiel in the face. After that, one of the demons tried to snatch the young woman away, her screams cowing the humans further. The men huddled the children around Ataegina’s body.

‘Give me that’, pled the goddess to one of the children, who was near a scrap of wood from the former window sills. The child put the piece of wood in her hand, as if trying to comfort her. As soon as she clutched her hand tightly around the piece of wood, it was as if life had been breathed into Ataegina’s body: she rose up, still naked and cut and blistered and pale from having been bled dry for spells, but her muscles flexed with strength and the scrap of wood grew into a sword in her hand. Her green eyes turned into glowing emeralds.

‘I’, she proclaimed, proud, ‘am the goddess of a warrior people!’

She swung the sword, cutting the demon so deeply, it hissed.

‘Stand back, you grievance!’

But there were still two more demons, and one of them snatched the young woman from the back.

‘Gretchen!’, screamed one of the youngest.

‘She’s as good as dead, I’m sorry!’, bit out Ataegina, and shepherded the humans towards the door while she traded blows with the demon.

Castiel had finally managed to wrench the demon off him, and then stabbed their body through the chest, quick and clean. He turned around to make sure all the innocents were gone, when he noticed that the demons had slit Gretchen over a goblet, and were just bleeding her over it.

 _I need to get out_ , Castiel thought. He was well aware of that method of demonic communication, and reinforcements did not bode well for him right at this time. His vessel ran for the back door, since the sigils in the floors of the house ensured that he could not fly away. He had managed to ensure that Ataegina escaped, so all Castiel had to do was survive to tell the tale and to catch up with Duria at a later date.

The ground quaked; Castiel’s vessel struggled to ran to the back door or to grab something, _anything_ to keep its balance and keep moving. A light started to pour into the house through the blasted wall.

It was Lucifer, two wings fully extended behind his vessel, just having landed from a flight.

 _He’s so beautiful_.

Castiel was moved.

Castiel was utterly terrified.

Lucifer’s wings were a marvel to behold: their Father had plucked every colour of every corner of His Creation, and poured all of them into making The Morningstar’s wings, wings that were great rivers, the rainbow, the coloured hot gases of nebullae—all of them resided in his luminiscent wings. His feather shafts were so shockingly vibrant, they ran through each feather like shining spider thread in the rachis of the smaller ones, and like veins of gold metal slithing deep into the earth in bigger ones, until the shafts became gold scaffolding to support the barbs of the flight feathers. Lucifer’s feathers were not tipped with anything so crass as some colour or another, the myriad colours already swimming in each feather an spectacle in and of themselves; each feather was, instead, crowned with a small dot of light of one colour each, casting dramatic shadows in-between each feather. The little stars and their shadows let stand out the silken texture any angel would love to caress—that no angel had had the privilege to even get close to.

His true sight was glued to Lucifer. The archangel could obliterate the whole place on nothing more than a whim. Lucifer turned his true sight to Castiel, too, then The Morningstar’s vessel walked up to him, all the while Lucifer’s power fed the Enochian sigils. This rendered Castiel effectively unable to advance without doing so with great sluggishness. Castiel’s Grace struggled to hold his emotions in, his wings flapped; however, his vessel fell to the ground because Castiel’s own pitiful Grace could not push back enough against the sigils’ overwhelming force to keep his vessel standing.

‘Your determination is impressive, but foolish, Castiel’, rebuked Lucifer gently, putting his wings on a resting position on his back.

When Lucifer’s vessel stood like that, with Castiel able to see Lucifer’s wings in all their glory, Castiel could not help but be reminded of the battlefield thousands and thousands of years ago, one night when Lucifer had extended all ten of his wings in the final push before he was locked up. It had been at night, and Lucifer had looked so terrifically awesome when he lit up the night itself as if Lucifer was the rising sun.

 _I’m going to die_.

The benevolent face of Lucifer’s vessel clashed with the predatory true gaze that roamed all over Castiel’s vessel and wings, and, in Castiel’s frightened mind, not too different from the way Lucifer had looked after wounding with his might battallion after battallion of angels during the war, even though Lucifer’s wings were just tucked in a resting position against his back instead of wide open and combative. Castiel could feel Lucifer’s Grace, so cold, brimming with interest when he observed Castiel. But Michael would not be present this time to strike Lucifer down.

Lucifer stopped at the head of Castiel’s vessel, which faced the ground. Castiel thought that Lucifer would grab his wings and rip them away from him, being that an easy way to kill the immobile Castiel. Lucifer defied his expectations by, instead, observing etiquette and keeping his own vessel in a crouching position such, his wings could not touch Castiel’s even by an accident of movement.

 _No. I refuse to accept that_.

Castiel’s vessel was heavily warded, shielding his true form from prying eyes, and making it a black body that an angel’s true sight could not pierce through. So Lucifer could not see when Castiel started to move, very quietly, ever so slowly, his vessel’s hand from under his vessel’s chest, after having breached its skin with his angel blade.

‘Why keep your emotions so hidden?’

Lucifer ran his vessel’s fingers lightly through James Novak’s hair.

 **Father, please. Don’t let this be the end**.

‘What do you care for my emotions?’, Castiel challenged back.

 _Stall, stall, stall_.

‘I don’t’, admitted Lucifer. It would have made Castiel’s Grace simmer, were it not for the fact Castiel refused to give anything away to that monster. ‘I care more for your thoughts. Must be really something’, and he sounded both fascinated and repulsed, ‘to choose humans over Heaven’.

 _You have no idea_.

‘However’, Lucifer said this while his vessel trailed a cold hand down a cheek belonging to the prone form in the ground, ‘you’re starting to annoy me. Some human trait you must have picked up’. The index glowed with power, and made a cut on the neck of Castiel’s vessel, making it bleed. ‘I think it’s time’.

A human would have found Lucifer’s touch unsettling and invasive, but Castiel was still angel enough that the vessel was just a body he moved around humans, and so, did not care much for however Lucifer choose to touch his vessel. To him, Lucifer was not being invasive. Lucifer was not trying to prod his Grace or to force Castiel to unfold his true form, and that was enough.

 _It’s strange you’d be so respectful, brother_.

‘Time for what?’

‘Time I killed you’. Castiel’s Grace fluttered inside of him. ‘I’d be doing you a mercy’. The face of Lucifer’s vessel looked sad, so sad. ‘You’re becoming more human, little one’.

Castiel stopped squashing his emotions down. He felt very smug, which gave Lucifer pause when The Morningstar tasted it.

‘Lucifer’.

Lucifer’s true sight faced Castiel’s.

‘Anything you’re feeling happy about, Castiel?’

Lucifer said it, just about to deliver Castiel his death, as if he were commenting on the weather and doing Castiel a favour by talking with him.

 _Fuck you_.

‘And you call me arrogant’, Castiel sneered.

Finishing a banishing sigil had never felt this good in Castiel’s life.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Castiel smashed against the centre of a crater. The snow helped to soften the blow, but his vessel still hurt all over, and the only reason he was not feeling the cold was that seraphim were not supposed to be cold. Otherwise, he would be freezing. His vessel turned around so Castiel was facing the sky.

 _I need to save that trick for another occasion_.

The feeling of escape was exhilarating. Lucifer would not fall for that trick ever again, but his hasty improvisation had saved him from a sure death. One never knew when knew tactics like this could come in handy at a later date.

_How did he locate me?_

He was atop Mount Fuji, in Japan. As he made his vessel walk up the crater’s side, he analysed the scene he had found back in Caerphilly. The demons, the blood in the floor, the young woman…

 _The woman!_ , reeled Castiel. As he reviewed his prior encounters with Lucifer, he could account for a human death, at least in Abdju. _Lucifer has told his demons to tail me_.

Had Castiel been human, he would have staggered and fallen, his strength all but gone from the crushing weight of this realisation. Castiel was not, however, so his Grace wallowed in despair as his vessel just kept walking in the snow.

Castiel wondered if this feeling settling inside of him was what Dean had once described as ‘when life sucks so hard it feels like a punch to the gut’.

Lucifer was confident Sam would eventually crack and say yes, but if Lucifer was so focused on Castiel, then Castiel would not subject Sam to being in Lucifer’s presence for longer than he had to. Besides, the Winchesters did not go purposefully after powerful centres of demonic activity, so the demons the hunters stumbled upon could not exactly go tell anyone because Sam and Dean caught them unaware, unlike the times when Castiel had been jumped.

 _I can’t help Sam and Dean with demons_.

Castiel did not want to leave the Winchesters alone, but these times had not cared much for what Castiel wanted as of lately.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Castiel was still having problems figuring out how to tell Sam and Dean the delicate position he was in, which surely would not go well with Dean. Either that or it would embolden The Righteous Man to do something foolish. His wings nowadays spent more time tucked than not to keep a low profile, and he still had to hear from Duria so Castiel had no moves yet. He walked amidst the heat down Ikeja’s swanky Opebi Road, ignoring the snotty looks the humans, dressed in whatever this lustrum had deemed fashionable, gave his vessel’s slightly dishevelled appearance.

A few squares later, Castiel’s vessel scowled. He could feel demons not far from where he was, and he could not investigate to see what trouble they were cooking up in this part of the world. It filled him with so much unhappiness, Castiel decided it was best to ignore his emotions for now.

 _They’re a nuisance_.

For lack of anything else to do, and just to feel symbolically closer to Sam and Dean, he flew to Austin. As he did so, his phone started to buzz. _What an annoying contraption_. He grabbed it, flipped it open, and scanned through the screen. Several missed calls, whatever those were, and many text messages written in the way that completely lacked the basic principles of spelling in the English language both Winchesters seemed so fond of, all with some variation of ‘where are you?’. Castiel bristled, but obliged on calling them. Dean instantly picked up.

‘Cas, where the hell have you been?’, asked Dean. Castiel tried to gauge whatever emotion Dean was feeling at the moment. ‘Seriously, we really need you here!’

‘I’ve been busy’.

‘Yeah, but don’t fall out of coverage! We’ve been calling for ages’.

 _I really doubt you understand how long an age is, Dean_.

‘I’ve been out of the country’.

‘So?’

‘My cellphone contract doesn’t have an international roaming plan’, Castiel clarified.

‘What?’

‘My cellphone contract—’

‘I understood you the first time! You know what a cellphone contract is? No, no, no, no. Scratch that. You know what roaming is?’

Sometimes, Castiel really wanted to smite Dean.

‘No, I don’t. It’s obvious from the name what it does, though’, Castiel answered drily.

‘Yeah, okay. Should’ve guessed that’.

‘What is it that you need?’

 _I hope it’s nothing to do with demons_.

‘Can you come here? I think it’s better if we tell you face to face’.

‘I don’t think that’s a go—’

‘Cas, please’, asked Sam over the phone, in a very reasonable voice.

Castiel steeled his Grace.

‘Are there demons nearby?’

‘Come on, Cas’, Dean had taken back his phone, ‘what do you take us f—’

‘Answer. The. Question’.

‘Geez, so cranky’. Then Dean talked in a very serious voice, carefully laying out their situation. ‘The town is clear. While there have been signs of, you know, demonic activity state-wide, that goes for every state nowadays, unfortunately. Besides, it’s not demons we’re worried about’.

‘Angels’.

Castiel was almost resigned to near-deaths by now.

‘Got it in one’.

‘Your address?’

Dean did not have to finish rattling off the address Sam and he were staying at, for Castiel to be able to find them. Castiel knew too well by now the way the Winchesters chose their places of lodgement.

This one was not as scummy as some of the others Castiel had visited the Winchesters in. The wallpaper had dots, orange-pink, dark grey and titanum white, over a bone-grey background. The bright orange sheets of the bed had diamond patterns in them with yellow edges.

‘Dean’.

Dean and Sam jerked away from the mobile phone they were still talking into in sudden alertness once Castiel’s human voice had reached them.

‘Jesus!’

‘Christ on a pizza, Cas! Doors!’

‘It seemed urgent’.

Castiel was never going to tell Dean his reaction was a just a little bit amusing to Castiel.

All of a sudden, Dean seemed reluctant to speak, tensing. There was a dread settling in him, that Castiel could only tell through their bond. Castiel wished he could see Dean’s soul for one last time before he was rendered completely blind, so bright and righteous, but he could not expose the Winchesters to the danger that desire of his would open the brothers to. _And Sam’s, too_. Castiel’s Grace fluttered. Yes, indeed, he wanted to see Sam’s soul, so full of  empathy and compassion, for one last time, too. He had not considered that before.

‘Dean had a dream’, offered Sam.

‘Sam!’

‘Come on’, Sam turned to Dean in a placating tone, ‘you agreed with me it was best Castiel knew’.

‘Ah, fine!’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘I dreamt about Anna’.

‘Anna?’

‘Anna, you know? Redhead, hot—’

 _Depends on which way you’re seeing her_.

‘—like so tall’, Dean mimed with his hand, ‘and that you guys wanted to roast over actually wanting to live’.

Castiel averted his vessel’s gaze in shame. Dean did not know how deep that particular betrayal ran.

‘How are you even sure it’s an angel we’re talking about?’, retorted Sam. ‘This is what I was saying about contacting Cas’.

‘I do think it’s likely it’s an angel’.

Dean gave Sam some sort of look that made Sam purse his lips and cross his arms, then turned to Castiel to speak.

‘She gave me an address to meet her. We need back-up, Cas’.

‘She shouldn’t be able to contact you’.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s probably a trap, Dean’. Castiel made his vessel pace for the window. Its gaze looked through the window, but Castiel’s true sight stayed focused on Sam and Dean, unnerving them without the Winchesters knowing why. ‘Dreams aren’t exactly the safest places’.

‘I dream inside my own head!’

‘Yes’.

How did the fact that Dean’s head was, indeed, his head, relate to the fragile, easy-to-infiltrate boundary of conscience and soul that dreams became if you knew how to manipulate them?

‘Cryptic ’til the end, I see’.

Dean raised his hands, exasperated.

‘You think it could be a trap?’, Sam said just to get the conversation back on track.

Castiel turned his vessel’s head to look at him with wide open eyes. It visibly spooked Sam.

‘Yes’.

‘So any ideas on how do we deal with an angel trap?’

His vessel’s hand fingered idly the lamp on the night stand.

‘By not walking into it in the first place. I’ll be going in your place’.

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’, Dean asked, concern obvious in his voice.

Sometimes, Castiel wanted to infuse Dean’s soul with his warmth to let Dean know how much the angel appreciated him.

‘It’s certainly better than going up to some angels and serving them the big, bad general’s vessel in a silver plate’, pointed out Sam.

‘Exactly’, agreed Castiel.

‘But are you sure you’re going to be okay?’

 _I don’t think I can be alright anymore, Dean_.

‘How long ago did she contact you?’

‘Dean woke me up about four hours ago. So, probably, like five or six hours’.

Castiel went silent for a bit, while Sam and Dean kept the conversation going.

‘I woke you up as soon as I did!’

‘Whatever you say, Dean’, Sam snorted.

‘Then I have time for preparations’.

‘Preparations?’

‘Yes, Sam. Let’s turn this trap around’.

Sam raised his eyebrows and nodded.

‘Shouldn’t you be going like right now before our fake-Anna escapes?’, asked Dean, clearly worried.

‘An angel contacted you, Dean. I’m surprised the location is as close as it is. They’ll expect you to eat, travel. All that takes time. As long as it isn’t more than a day, it won’t arise suspicions’.

‘ _And_ , you’d have more time to prepare if you weren’t out of coverage’.

Castiel was not the most patient angel, but he felt being allies with Dean was an exercise in patience, sometimes.

‘Then, pray. That reaches me anywhere’.

‘You have a cellphone!’

 _You think too little of yourself if you think you’re unworthy of praying, Dean_.

‘Cellphones don’t have coverage in Heaven or Hell’.

Castiel’s wry answer aggravated Dean.

‘Where the fuck have you been looking for God?’

‘Not on a flatbread’.

Dean chuckled, then fumed when he realised Castiel was being a ‘smart-ass’, as humans called it.

Sam gaped at them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope my readers can forgive me.
> 
>  **I swear I investigated all of this to be as respectful as possible**. I had no idea my local public library had a French version of the _Ramakien_ , but there you go. Link to annotated version [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12188821/5/The-Devil-Falls%0A).
> 
> If you feel the need to bring up any concerns, feel free to leave a comment as I always reply straight away :)


	6. Past Remembrances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The flap of a butterfly disturbs the air. Is that not right, Anna?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings : Torture, gore. ******
> 
> Many thanks to [Renezinha](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Renezinha) for her kind advice.

Anna struggled against the Enochian bindings and the strength of the galgalim that were dragging her away. Before her Fall, she would not have fought them off, knowing it was useless by every measure—especially a malach going against even one galgal. However, she had been human for close to three decades, which apparently gave her something of a stubborness to try any futile action, since humans had to be one stubborn species to survive several centuries of Lucifer’s onslaught almost two hundred thousand years ago. The galgalim flew until they reached the walls of wind and trees, with bottomless floors, of Heaven’s prison. It was difficult for any single human to understand the true scope of Heaven, the shapes, the architecture, its geography so closely bound and piled up with pockets upon pockets and how alien to the way humans thought of the world, used as humans were to easy mortal planes with four perceivable dimensions. Although, with enough exploring, or with complex enough mathematics humanity could not even begin to understand, it could be described adequately or, at least, get an approximation of understanding. Anna—as she chose to call herself—knew this; she had known this in the back of her mind even as human but, like so many things, she could not understand them until she had ‘angeled up’ again. In some ways her suffering mind was very human, because she fancied the abodes of angels as golden spheres floating above the myriad soul-heavens, even if this was not quite accurate, and a better description would be that angelic homes were folded in themselves, in the in-between that souls could not access.

The dwelling places of angels were in the highest spheres of Heaven, safely nestled between dimensions and in-between heavens. Although angels borrowed specific heavens for an intended purpose from time to time. In this one heaven, quite liked for its stability and cleanliness, almost as old as humanity, one of Heaven’s prisons stood. Heaven was a place of mercy, after all, so it choose not to immediately kill its rebels, dissidents, if they could instead be held… or persuaded. This, Anna knew to a painful degree.

As soon as they all had stepped into this particular pocket of space, the sigils all over them activated. Anna was hung by her wings, sigils suspended on both her front and her back kept her wings from moving, thereby impeding Anna from hatching an escape. There was another set of sigils under her, a circle programmed to only let some of her jailors in. It actually was not painful, for Heaven had always minded even the wings of traitors, however, the whole set up kept her Grace in a constant state of irritation.

ANAEL, a deep voice boomed.

 _My name is Anna_.

Because the choice of her name was all Anna had now.

Naomi was a galgal with a far prettier true form that her drab, single-coloured wings would suggest at first sight. Her form was all made of copper, while the sides of her tail and of her many limbs seemed to be studded with glittering beryls that also ran down her back. She was not standing on quite the same level as the spell under Anna’s form—it did not work like that—but it was close enough for the comparison to be able to be made.

OF ALL OF OUR BRETHREN, Naomi sounded amazed, I DIDN’T EXPECT TO SEE YOU HERE, SISTER. THEN AGAIN, the Intelligence Division Chief pondered out loud, I ABSOLUTELY DIDN’T EXPECT YOU TO FALL AND LEAVE YOUR DARLING GARRISON BEHIND. AND I EXPECTED YOU TO HAVE THE GOOD SENSE TO DIE BEFORE BEING CAPTURED.

AND HERE WE ARE, Anna’s voice trailed out, mentally exhausted. Castiel’s betrayal, Heaven’s treatment, her discomforted Grace…

HERE WE ARE, agreed solemnly Naomi. I’LL SEE TO YOU MYSELF.

Anna hugged herself. She was intimately familiar with her torture methods, having been brought up under Naomi’s wing when she had been just created, a long time ago.

Naomi concentrated her power in one limb, and started drawing other sigils that Anna could not quite see, even with her encompassing true sight. Once they were set into place, the ambience changed. Her Grace felt an extra pull on it, almost like she was offering Communion, but not quite. There was something brimming just under her conscious thoughts, and Anna found herself scared that she could **not** know what that could be.

YOU WERE _SUCH_ A GOOD ANGEL —YOU’VE NEVER BEEN HERE BEFORE.

 _Just keep piling on the lies, sister_.

Anna knew that was a calculated lie. Before her Fall, before even meeting the Winchesters, she would have agreed wholeheartedly with that statement. But Pamela Barnes had been a hell of a psychic, who, without either Anna or Pamela knowing, had given back Anna everything; every single memory, painful or not. She still found it hard to suppress them all and focus in the present, and it was less than comforting to know that she was probably one of the very few angels that had all the truth of her entire mind with herself instead of locked away, and the fact that she was going to rot in prison not unlike the traitor Gadreel made that knowledge pointless.

Only once Anna had directly disobeyed.

( _C OME ON, CASTIEL. WE’VE MATTERS TO ATTEND TO, the seraph told Castiel._

_Castiel just dipped his head towards the bulky figure of the arrogant, handsome seraph. Castiel’s elegant form fell into step behind Zachariah. One of Zachariah’s three tails swished casually; it almost, but not quite, touched Castiel—both to spur Castiel to be right by his side as well as to better taste the tightly-controlled emotions of Castiel’s Grace. Balthazar fanned his wings, defiant._

_H EY, PIECE OF SH—_

_S TAND BACK, BALTHAZAR, commanded Castiel._

_B UT—_

_Y OUR CONCERN IS UNWANTED AND UNWARRANTED, dismissed Zachariah. Castiel seemed to hold himself even more stiffly, but concurred:_

_I’ M SURE THIS HAD TO DO WITH THE QUESTIONABLE TACTICS I EMPLOYED IN THE LAST RAID, Castiel excused Zachariah, signalling to Balthazar that he should not look for more trouble._

_This angered Anael, to the point where she could not hold aside her own feelings about the matter any further, due to being sickened by Zachariah’s attitude of lording his power over Castiel. Zachariah had been disciplined several times about the matter, but the lesson seemed not to stick._

_I NDEED, WE’LL HAVE TO REVIEW THAT._

_And Castiel would have to Commune, albeit lightly, with that seraph. Even just showing Zachariah the memories was too much. Superior officer of hers or not, her blade slipped into her strongest limb, and she advanced, defiant._

_I’ LL HAVE TO REPORT YOU, ZACHARIAH._

_I S THAT A THREAT?_

_Before Castiel could say anything to descalate the situation, she flung him to the side, and lunged at Zachariah._

_A malach going against a seraph was not much of a fight_ ).

Naomi went to the folds of space around the cell. There were instruments that could harm her there.

FLOGGING ME ALIVE?, Anna sassed.

NOT AT ALL. YOU’RE A SPECIAL ONE IF WE COULDN’T CATCH YOUR… _DISOBEDIENCE_ BEFORE.

It was something twisted, but Anna knew that, under Naomi’s emotionless tone, there was a hint of affection and worry for her. Anna knew this because the only time she had been subjected to Naomi’s tender mercies, she had explained herself, the situation, and Naomi had listened, thoughtful, before working on her. Whatever she had done to Zachariah all those millions of years ago had finally screwed on his Grace right, for he had stopped his stupid attitude towards Castiel.

Naomi got out something that was like a potato peeler. It was suddenly, horrifyingly clear what ‘special’ meant in Naomi’s world. Her arms suddenly immobilised.

NO, Anna said. NO, NO, NO—SISTER, PLEASE.

Naomi paid her no mind, flying up to under Anna’s neck and sinking one of the bits under her face. Angels did not cry, but Anna’s terracotta eyes looked upwards, to the beauty of an ocean above them while her feelings bottled out of her Grace, and dyed everything around Naomi. Naomi dragged the instrument slowly, peeling away Anna’s hardy malach skin little by little, Grace spilling on to the floor and in vaporous wisps in the space around them. Naomi cut off the skin that hung nonchalantly. She then put a hand over the crystalline under skin, the space filled out by Grace. Rivers pulsed throughout them.

STILL HEALTHY AND STRONG. THAT’S GOOD NEWS.

That was _anything_ but good news.

Her skin, of course, would grow again. Faster than usual, even, for she was back in Heaven. It did not stop the hurt.

Naomi dragged it out, painstakingly extending parts of her skin away, until her whole torso was raw, crystal-clear and see through, and bled Grace all over her cell. Her arms sagged. Her Grace was not powered enough for her to have the energy to move them and, for the first time, Anna knew what it was to be both an angel and to be tired. Whatever force Naomi had activated to incapacitate her arms, the Intelligence Chief made it go away, leaving Anna’s arms just hanging, and leaving her form strung up by her wings.

THIS IS GOING TO HURT.

HURT?

_What can hurt more than it does now?_

Anna should not have wondered. Naomi grabbed a long, thin, hollow stick, and jammed it into Anna’s torso. She screamed as Naomi prodded around, looking for her very core—now located around a place analogous to the placement of the human heart—then _pierced_. Electric currents rose up in archs, and the sigils in her wings shone menacingly, but Anna was left without the strength to even express her pain. There were glowing rivers that coursed through her raw, see-through torso; instead of falling to the floor, the rivers  twisted, went inside of herself, then Anna’s Grace started to drip slowly through the new cannula.

WE CAN’T HAVE YOU DYING JUST YET.

Those words were poor comfort.

Once Naomi had set up the cannula so that Anna’s Grace did not spill all around her until it killed Anna, the galgal turned to the instruments in the corner.

NOW, SOME DISCIPLINING IS IN ORDER.

The whip had a sharp point; fire danced over it. First, Naomi struck her feet, making Anna quake all over. And struck just above them, in the area that would be the ankles, had she been in a human body. Slowly, blow by blow, while Anna quaked and contorted, Naomi went up her true form. The dread was the worst part, since the merciless galgal got closer and closer to her skinned chest until, finally, she arrived to strike the first blow there. If Anna had screamed before, this time she shrieked.

IT’S TOO BAD YOU CAN’T FORM WORDS RIGHT NOW, said Naomi, as she flogged her again. This time with the fiery point, leaving cracks along the crystal meat. YOU DO HAVE ONE OF THE LOVELIEST VOICES, ANAEL.

The compliments Anna knew to be true were empty in spirit, as she tried—but could not—to inch away from the torture at Naomi’s hands, while Anna kept shouting and screeching. Had she been in a human body, her vocal chords would have grown hoarse, until she would have been rendered eventually voiceless; but angels were eternal and perfect, as Dean had pointed out once, so she could have screamed until the end of eternity or her death. Heaven did not seem too keen in killing her.

 _This is going to be the rest of my life_.

Along with the pain, despair rose up in the air, which startled Naomi. Anna could perceive Naomi’s satisfaction. Finally, Naomi set her whip down, and looked at Anna.

THAT’LL DO FOR TODAY. There was one last thing to be done to Anna, before Naomi was satisfied. Naomi had a bowl in her hand.

 _It’s forge-acid_ , Anna realised; a substance that could engrave the nigh-indestructible weapons of Heaven.

AFTER WE WENT THROUGH SO MUCH TROUBLE TO LEAVE YOU LIKE THIS, WE CAN’T LET YOU GROW THE SKIN BACK. Naomi explained. She was cautious when handling the bowl; galgalim just were not as hardy as malachim, but Anna’s skin was what would have protected her, and now her torso had been peeled away. REPEATED SKINNINGS WOULD JUST TRAUMATISE YOU.

Anna’s mad laughter just echoed in the cell, but her desperation intesified. Naomi disregarded the laughter; Anna’s Grace in the space around them both made clear what, exactly, Anna’s feelings were about the whole set up.

And Anna knew pain again, while Naomi calmly explained.

THE PROBLEM WITH MALACHIM, WEAK THOUGH YOU ARE, IS THAT YOU RECOVER TOO FAST. Acid was poured on her meat. She spasmed and flailed her arms, nearly knocking the bowl off. Naomi’s tight grip kept it firm in her hand, but the liquid did burn some of her skin off, and Naomi did shout in pain. Then, Anna’s arms froze. Naomi composed herself as if her skin had not just been breached, the galgal’s own crystal skin cracked, and kept explaining, calmly. I NEED TO SEAR YOUR MEAT SO THE SKIN DOESN’T GROW BACK FOR A WHILE. PERHAPS SCRUB IT RAW ONCE IN A WHILE, TOO.

When the acid touched the patch of skin surrounding the cannula, some of the acid got inside her body before running out; this was a pain so hot she found herself detached and inside her true form, blind, only perceiving the world through the most basic of senses.

She felt a presence, a sharp Grace reaching out to her hurt one in a cracked body. Anna welcomed the compassionate presence, reaching out in turn to Commune. Then she saw her own body, Naomi standing in front of her, extending a trendil of Grace into it.

 _This is Heaven’s compassion_.

ANAEL. I ONLY WANT WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU. I WON’T SUFFER TO SEE YOU FALLEN.

Naomi was not the only angel that could not see her in this Fallen state.

( _‘The Father you love’. This body of hers looked at Castiel, earnest yet serious, willing him to understand; for despite everything, Anna still cared about him. ‘You think he wants this?’ Anna was sure that their Father would not have left a message of love written into every human belief if he had abetted torturing, she had come to think—perhaps she had been too much influenced by her human mind, for Richard Milton and Amy Milton née Swain had been fishers of humans who had truly believed in God. ‘You think this is righteous?’_

_When she said ‘righteous’, her Grace spiked and emphasised how dissatisfied Anna was with the situation. Castiel tasted her Grace, and could not meet her eyes, turning over that thought inside of his head while his sweet, sweet bitterness filled the air. Her body—it was difficult to think of it as ‘her’, now that she puppeted it—got closer, sliding over the table._

_‘What you’re feeling… It’s called doubt’._

_Castiel had brought his vessel to look at her, his emotions only slightly apparent in its eyes. She felt something she thought was Castiel’s heartache in the air, so sweet, fresh; and could not help but remember earlier times in their little foxhole. Castiel looked so beautiful when he despaired: great wings trailed behind him, still shining with all those colours that Anna had counted more than once with her own limbs a very, very long time ago; a halo surrounded his handsome vessel, his cloying Grace lingered in the air_).

The rejection that followed that conversation still stung.

The presence left her, and Anna tried to take her time to find some measure of peace. She was unsuccessful, of course, and so one day her consciousness emerged, her true form still hurting, with a crystallised torso open to the world.

Naomi stood to one side, this time flanked by two other angels; her lackey Nathaniel and another one. Naomi slithered around her until she was at her back, holding a thin knife in one of her upper limbs. Naomi raised her electric blue eyes, a feature Anna had once commented she would have loved to have, and plowed the instrument down her back, paying no mind to Anna’s screams.

I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU’VE TURNED THIS WAY, WHEN WE USED TO BE SO CLOSE. SO OBEDIENT, Naomi said, sounding downright bored. Anna knew there was something she was missing, but did not know what that could be. ONCE UPON A TIME YOU WERE WILLING TO HELP THE UNRULY.

Anna’s back tensed, she screamed. The sharp knife had been infused with the heat of a star. It left an angry, shiny road across Anna’s back. It was too close to her wings, so she sobbed in fear. She had lost track of time a while ago… Who knew how much more she would have to endure? Unlike her wings, her limbs were free, so she wrapped them around herself and her legs, trying to derive whatever comfort she could.

 _I won’t repent, Naomi. I can’t_.

Anna was sure that Nathaniel and the other angel had been chosen purposefully to prolong her torture, or some equally sick end. Naomi jammed her stick into her true form to contort her Grace in pain.

Anna tried to focus on anything, anything other than all of that… Not-Nathaniel had bright purple wings with silver specks…

( _Castiel was with her in the few moments they could snatch alone; he was telling Anael about some joke Uriel had made while she was not there whipping up the garrison into shape. The flight feathers that were closest to her were still such a marvel to see, with their black tips, the stars on them shining through their purple colour. She ran a finger through them, her Grace shining on top of them so that both she and the other angel could feel the sensation in an even stronger fashion. Castiel shivered. It was a pity they had to stop._

_Two angels that could have been mistaken for two-winged malachim were it not for their lower bodies, crawled up to them, led by Naomi._

_N ATHANIEL. MAHALATH. GOOD TO SEE YOU, she greeted. NAOMI._

_I N WHICH WAY MAY MY GARRISON HELP YOU?, Castiel offered._

_W E CAME HERE ON AN ERRAND, Naomi answered. She exchanged more polite greetings with Anael, who was somewhat happy to see her._

_Anael could pinpoint the exact moment Castiel figured out what was going on when his wings spread out in alertnes and he stepped back, his terror like candy in the air. He would have fled were it not for the fact that Naomi was good at what she did, and she had already prepared a spell… She dropped it on the floor, leaving Castiel frozen in a pose. The two galgalim roped him, and started to drag him away._

_A NAEL, WHY?, he cried out to her, wings fully spread out while he struggled, the purple looking almost translucent against the light._

_I T’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD._

_Naomi turned to her. Unlike Castiel’s, her Grace was all sharp edges, but she could be very kind and fair when the occasion warranted. Like right in this instant. She was very pleased with Anael._

_Y OU DID GOOD._

_I HAVE FAITH SOMEDAY YOU’LL STRAIGHTEN HIM OUT._

_Ever since she set her sights on him, taking him under her wing, Anael had only ever wanted what was best for Castiel._

_I BETTER, TOO, SINCE YOU MADE ME PROMISE NOT TO KILL HIM._

_W E NEED MORE FIGHTERS LIKE HIM, Anael dismissed_).

She was jolted out of her reverie.

 _You’re manipulating me_.

Nathaniel had teal wings. Teal. Anna forced herself to look upwards, too tired to pray to a Father she did not even know.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

From then on, it was an assault on her, on her mind, on her form. Out of some misguided sense of decency, neither her wings nor her Grace were touched, and she was allowed time to recover. Anna wanted to die, albeit Naomi would never let that happen. Feelings were the windows to doubt, yet angels still had them. Nevertheless, they had to be ignored. Anna never had quite the presence of mind to keep track of the variety of instruments… She wondered if Naomi would even let her remember it all, or if Naomi was finally going to set Anna straight like she had done to Castiel and Inias after Sodom and Gomorrah.

Naomi also fed her information, just to torment her further, it seemed.

DID YOU KNOW CASTIEL IS DEAD?

Anna sobbed.

HE HAD IT COMING, Anna replied.

YOU DON’T BELIEVE THAT.

Yes, she actually did. It pained her all the more because of that.

( _Y OU’RE KEEPING ME FROM BATTLE, Castiel stated flatly, his anger barely controlled. Castiel must have been livid if the air was so honeyed. She could almost feel a cold breeze, instead of just tasting the crispness of Castiel’s feelings._

_Anael attempted to explain herself, but the shock and hesitation in her Grace gave the truth away._

_I WASN’T—_

_O UR SIBLINGS HAVE DIED. I’M YOUR SECOND-IN-COMMAND, I COULD’VE HELPED! YOU KEEP ORDERING ME TO STAND BACK!_

_Y OU’D RATHER DIE? KNOW YOUR PLACE, CASTIEL._

_She spread her wings wide and high, the feathers like red soil, and any other angel would be backtracking to say sorry. But not Castiel, who spread in open defiance his many-coloured wings, and went on to raise them and extend them; his usually demure attitude transformed into a dark thing, all the more menacing due to the sheer size of his wings._

_**N O**. YOUR JUDGEMENT IS CLOUDED. Anael started to circle Castiel, about to retort. Castiel did not let her. THIS IS OVER._

_A wave of pain coursed through her Grace, as she watched Castiel take flight, angry. Anael was just going to go after him, when Balthazar spoke up, silent watcher he had been up until this moment._

_I HAVE SOMETHING TO REPORT. Anael was sorely tempted to whack him, but she could not refuse a subordinate in official matters, so she relaxed her wings and stood straight. I TOLD YOU BOTH THIS WAS NEVER GOING TO WORK OUT, BUT YOU’RE A COUPLE OF STUBBORN MORONS._

_H AVE SOME RESPECT FOR YOUR SUPERIORS, Anael snapped._

_Balthazar narrowed his eyes, and swept his wings in a dismissive gesture; then he went after Castiel—no doubt to chew him out as well_ ).

NOW THE RIGHTEOUS MAN AND THE BOY WITH THE DEMON BLOOD HAVE GONE THEIR SEPARATE WAYS, Naomi commented idly, as she worked at hacking one of her feet. AT THIS RATE, LUCIFER IS GOING TO GET HIS VESSEL.

After she ceased to scream, Anna wondered if keeping her updated about the war effort was something Naomi thought to be sisterly, somehow.

( _Anna walked from behind the folding screen, painted with a picture of a vitral of St. John’s, spurred on by the assurances of the men that were with her in the attic. The Winchesters the angels had been whispering about, oh, she hoped those were the ones who were there. She stopped and turned in front of the big window with the magenta-and-white window panes to face them, looking at them with anticipation. Her heart beat strongly in her chest. One was tall, the other even taller, both very handsome. She did not know which one was which, but their presence brought her comfort._

_‘And you’re Dean. The Dean?’, she forced out something that was between a whisper and her normal voice; somewhat harsh._

_‘Well’, the shorter one stumbled. Then he spoke with a charming smirk on his full lips: ‘Yeah. ‘The Dean’, I guess’._

_Her heart leaped in her chest at that smile; his apparel, his hair, all gave out a ‘bad boy’ vibe._

Oh, God, I can’t believe I’m thinking about this in this moment _._

_To shake herself from that trail of thought, she could not help but blurt out the first things that came to her mind._

_‘Oh my God’, she breathed, amazed that everything she heard was true. There were always those pesky doubts, especially when she had been interned. ‘The angels talk about you all the time’. They looked at her, their eyes narrowing in confusion, but she could not stop. ‘You were in Hell. But Castiel pulled you out, and some of them think you can help save us!’ She stopped suddenly, not even three feet from them. She turned to Sam, nervous, wondering if all that she had heard was true. ‘And… some of them don’t like you at all’._

_Sam pursed his lips, and looked honest-to-God fed up with that._

Oops! Change topics, change topics).

I WOULD NEVER BETRAY YOU, SISTER. THAT’S WHY YOU’RE GOING TO BE ALRIGHT IN THE END.

Anna could never believe that, coming out from Naomi’s form with her deep voice. She had had it with feeling betrayed.

( _‘What do you want from me, Castiel?’ Her chin up, Anna’s body looked at Castiel with stern mettle._

_Castiel’s vessel looked at her with an emotionless face, but its voice wobbled, reflecting the many feelings that were floating in the winter’s night, coming from his Grace, that were so jumbled up Anna could not tell them apart._

_‘I’m considering disobedience’._

_The admission stunned her; this was not something Castiel ran into willingly, ever. And yet, he had admitted it to Anna. Her body started to nod slightly; Anna was still surprised with this turn of events, even as it pleased her._

_‘Good’._

_‘No, it isn’t’. Of course Castiel, ever the good little soldier, would feel defiance to Heaven a monstruous thing even when he was straight up harbouring bad thoughts. ‘For the first time… I feel…’_

_Castiel could not keep up the emotionless façade any longer, so his vessel’s breath was caught up in his doubt and anguish and its eyes darted to the side. His wings ruffled._

_‘It gets worse’. Simple statement of truth, but one that hit so hard her former underling that his vessel looked to the floor, and then looked to the side, clearly uncomfortable… so much so, he even fanned his wings for them to flank him to offer Castiel some barrier to stop Anna’s words from affecting him. This moved Anna. She felt an intense need to comfort Castiel; thus, her body walked towards him, each step punctuating her every word. ‘Choosing your own course of action… It’s confusing’._

_Slowly, she raised her hand, with her Grace full of warmth, of friendship. Echoes of every aspect their relationship had ever had._

_‘Terrifying’._

_Now her body’s hand was on the shoulder of Castiel’s vessel. True sight and vessel’s eyes all, Castiel looked at the hand, and, just as suddenly, the faint heavenly presence coursing through Castiel’s vessel drained from his shoulder, and his feelings were bottled up, unreadable. Anna knew when she was not wanted. And because this was Castiel, this hurt,_ hurt _. So much._

_‘That’s right’, her voice bitter, her body’s face contorted with rage on the brink of tears. ‘You’re too good for my help’. This angel Anna still felt a connection to was still nothing more than the angel that had come to kill her months ago; something which she had made the mistake of forgiving Castiel for. ‘I’m just trash’, she spat out. ‘A walking **blasphemy** ’._

_Anna gave Castiel one last look of contempt, before walking away, determined to leave him behind._

_‘Anna’, Castiel let out, an undertone of brokenness to his vessel’s voice._

_Anna kept walking through the snow, wanted to keep walking. She took a couple of steps, distanced herself from Castiel…_

_And yet, Anna stopped_ ).

To keep herself from going mad, Anna started noticing the little things. Like how when Naomi, Nathaniel or Eliphal—the angel, along with Nathaniel, with the wings that broke her heart just a little bit more every time she saw him—entered her cell, they entered wings forward, the sigils obviously keyed to their wings. Nathaniel was a silent one and Naomi’s second, and Eliphal was only tasked with reapplying the acid, just observing when they were tearing her Grace inside and out; most likely an apprentice that was transferred to Naomi’s department after being deemed more suitable for this line of work.

 _Waste not, want not. Robotic efficiency_.

Also, with the war, things we’re not going according to plan for the angels, thanks to one Dean Winchester.

HONESTLY, THE REASON THIS WHOLE FARCE IS EVEN NECESSARY IS BECAUSE LUCIFER WANTS IT. I WISH WE COULD DO AWAY WITH THE BOY, BUT THE RIGHTEOUS MAN IS TOO ATTACHED TO HIM.

 _Oh, Sam_.

Earnest, kind-hearted, smart Sam Winchester.

Who had unleashed Hell on Earth.

( _‘Lost track’. Her smile was all chagrin and no happiness in it. ‘I was falling at about ten thousand miles per hour at the time’._

_The younger Winchester frowned, and fixated on Anna. Had she known him better, like his brother Dean, she would have been able to tell the moment the cogs starting to turn in his head. His hair looked more brown than the dark brunette he was in the soft light._

_‘Wait’. Sam raised his eyebrows. ‘You mean’, Anna turned to look at him, ‘ falling. Like, literally’._

_‘Yes’._

_She did not quite know where this exchange was going, but she answered earnestly all the same._

_‘Like the way a human eye can see—like a comet, maybe? Or a… meteor?’_

_This was just getting stranger by the minute._

_‘Why do you ask?’_

_‘Well’, Sam smiled, all grown-up cuteness thanks to the dimples in his face; he raised a finger while he got off his seat, distracted, ‘that just gives me an idea’. Sam approached a shelf, full of dust since it was filled with old magazines, which, Anna supposed, may have not been of much use to a hunter… But it certainly spoke of the remnants of a normal life. ‘So you were born in eighty-five, which means, somewhere around… Eight, nine months…’. His head jerked as if he had suddenly remembered something. ‘Were you premature?’_

_‘A boring, normal nine months’. She walked up to him. ‘You think you can find it this way’._

_‘Yeah’, he replied, still flicking through magazines trying to find one with the right month or week in it. ‘I mean, why not?’ He looked at her, a wry smile on his lips. ‘At least we’ve got to try’._

_‘Okay. Sounds good. Where do I start?’_

_‘I think Bobby has some almanacs over there’_ ).

Anna—Anael—seized on to that thought.

She desperately wanted to stop it all.

Naomi finished ramming hooks through her torso, and the cannula sputtered a little bit more Grace. With a dismissive flick of one hand, the hooks glowed; sharp points unfolded like umbrellas without cloth inside her crystal flesh.

TAKE IT FROM HERE, Naomi instructed Eliphal.

The end of Eliphal’s tail raised and swayed slowly. With each subtle movement, the hooks started to be pulled out, rupturing and cracking her meat whenever they went through.

 _The Apocalypse must be stopped_.

This became her madness mantra every time she had to scream.

ONE WOULD THINK YOU ACTUALLY _LIKE_ HUMANS.

( _‘That’s all I’m trying to say’._

 _Anna remembered now the glory of Heaven, of her fellow siblings—yet none of them looked to her as Dean Winchester looked to her in that instant, all uncertain while offering whatever comfort he could provide instead of being hostile and cold…_ Hester _… irreverent and distant…_ Balthazar _… fanatical and beautiful…_ Castiel _… Dean Winchester just offered her a hand. It was that simple. All his heart laid open to her even if he tried to cover it up with off-colour jokes and jibes. Dean, who had been self-denying and righteous as he offered up his soul, starting the Apocalypse without meaning to, for love of the only family he had remaining._

_His chiseled jaw caught the shadows of the night in interesting ways, his green eyes smokey and astonished from all the things Anna had revealed to him about the Angels of the Lord. He did not expect anything from Anna; he did not expect her to play prisoner or to be a bloodbag to drain of information, he just wanted her to be okay. In this moment, her treacherous mind wished she could have been an angel again to see how bright his soul must have lit up the insides of his well-toned body. And she **wanted** this._

_She kissed him once… twice…_

_‘What was that for?’_

_He looked guileless and surprised. Anna smiled._

_‘You know’, her smile widened just a tiny little bit and her eyes darted to the side, all fake-innocent. ‘Our last night on Earth’. She rolled her eyes, because it was obvious. ‘All that’._

_At first, Dean was strangely reluctant, looking to the side, but then looked straight at her, as if wanting to make sure Anna still wanted him. How could she not? She was still smiling. Anna was observing Dean so intently she even noticed when he blinked a couple times before speaking with certitude._

_‘You’re stealing my best line’._

_Dean raised his eyebrows with a smirk, almost like he was sharing a joke with a voice inside of his head, and leant in to kiss her_ ).

Anna-not-Anael just laid her head back, not wanting to fight any longer. It had been an ordeal when Nathaniel had scrubbed raw her torso again, dropping the residues carelessly on the floor. They would disintegrate without being close to a Grace to fuel them, after all. It was a miracle how she had not died yet. Every time Naomi brought her news, the situation seemed worse and worse.

 _At any cost. It must be stopped at any cost_.

YOU KNOW WHAT ZEPHANIAH TOLD ME THE OTHER DAY, TO PASS ONTO THE ARCHANGELS? Anna-not-Anael was, of course, too tired to respond. CASTIEL IS LOOKING FOR FATHER.

Her voice chimed in laughter, bouncing off the not-walls of her cell; such a devastation in feelings for such a seemly sound.

WHAT AN IDIOT.

She had zero faith left. Zilch.

ON THAT WE AGREE, ANAEL.

( _The great plain, sparsely populated with trees amidst the high grass, extended before her, the City of Nyeni just a sprawl in the distance. Anael flew over there, observing caravans upon caravans of fortune-seeking merchants that brought their goods to partake in the wealth of Manden. Guards with white skirts, and turbans and shirts of red cloth, had scimitars and spears to patrol the trading routes and to keep errant lions at bay. The sun set in the great empire._

_Anael waited. It was all she did, lately—wait._

_Castiel and Hester were in the distance, surveying Nyeni and, perhaps later, growing Timbuktu, at her behest. She did not understand how Hester could be so unmovable in character. They had already been almost thirteen hundred years on Earth, stationed away from Heaven._

_**Father, please. What are our orders?** _

_She did not expect an answer._

_Inias stopped with Balthazar at her side, Inias giving way to the older angel._

_T HERE’S A HELL GATE AT SHENKIIT._

_Alone, she had a lot more leeway in her decisions, but otherwise she…had her orders._

_I F YOU CAN CLOSE IT DISCRETELY, DO SO. IF NOT, LEAVE THE DEMONS BE. WE’VE BEEN ORDERED NOT TO INTERFERE._

_Although, to what end, she could not fathom why._

_Y EAH, YEAH, Balthazar dismissed her, while Inias just bowed._

_The humans were as ants to her in the vast landscape, her true form being a ghalva and half a seir tall, and her wingspan a little bit under twice that… Even so, she observed them; the children with their families, with their relatives. Mother and father. She did not, could not show it… nevertheless, she coveted_).

As much as her mind allowed Anael to, she planned and waited, concentrating whatever Grace she could into her heart. Teal-winged Nathaniel was in her cell, puncturing her hand with a sharp floret. Compared to the pain she had become used to enduring, this was not much, but it would take a turn for the worse, as always. However, this time, she had a plan. With all her might she moved with her mind, slowly, ever so slowly, the floret out every time she was sure Nathaniel was not looking. He was not a very talkative one, for which she was thankful.

The galgal was putting away everything he was not going to use. Anael arranged her other arms so that they hid what she had done to the floret. When Nathaniel came near her with the whip, ready for another session, Anael jerked and stuck him close to her body, the floret threatening to behead him.

IF YOU TRY TO SOUND ANY ALARM, SMITE ME, OR TRY TO CHANT TO INUTILISE MY ARMS, I WILL KILL YOU. As an emphasis to her point, she breached easily his nape’s skin; galgalim being more vulnerable than malachim. FLICK YOUR TAIL TO SHOW ME YOU UNDERSTAND ME. Nathaniel did that. GOOD. NOW LET MY WINGS GO.

NO.

THAT’S NOT GOING TO END WELL FOR YOU, NATHANIEL.

She started a sawing motion. Nathaniel contorted in pain, the blade arriving to his crystal interior, which cracked under the vicious attack. It was fast, for galgalim were soft-skinned compared to malachim.

JUST STOP. LEAVE ME BE.

NO. I KNOW THAT YOU CAN DO THAT JUST FINE. USE YOUR JAILOR PRIVILEGES.

YOU’RE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS.

The sigils dissolved in flakes of light, and Anael and Nathaniel spilled on the floor. Nathaniel instantly tried to belly away to give himself a wide berth to use his considerable power, but Anael stabbed his tail all the way through, earning an anguished cry from him.

NOT SO FUN NOW THAT YOU’RE IN THE RECEIVING END, IS IT?

Then, Anael ripped several long flight feathers from his wings, leaving Nathaniel twisting in pain on the floor. Her torso was still raw and see-through, so it was to her advantage to keep the cannula in, as painful as it was… lest the Grace covered Anna all over once again and drifted away from her true form until she bled to death, with no skin to contain the Grace. The sigils were keyed to their wings… Anael made one feather combust, each exertion of her might pure agony.

 _I have to get out_.

The barrier let her through.

Had Anael been less in pain, she would have noticed Naomi’s smug silhouette slipping into the cell to help Nathaniel out.

She knew there were several more doors to go through, but Anael was a fast flyer; she just bolted while she burnt more and more feathers to fake Nathaniel’s signature, until she managed to get out of the prison complex and into a heaven where a little boy fished in a sea that had no end. From there, it was a lot easier to fly directly to Earth.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Anael threw a botched warding job on her, that did a decent job. Now she was on Earth, somewhere above Tuvalu—she had not checked her destination in her hurry. Anael might as well land in the island, so she did, unsealing her body in the process. When she touched the soft sand, she buckled over in pain. Her true form was so damaged the pain resonated through her existence; this made her body bleed internally, which left her insides in a mess of blood that she coughed up.

 _Whatever the cost_.

She thought of kind Sam, of what she must do, and decided she needed to see both Sam and Dean one last time. She flew back to the country she had come to regard as hers, and cast her senses far and wide to search for the Winchesters. In the way, she picked up a knife. Flying hurt a lot, but it would hurt even more to go back to Heaven, thus Anael endured the beats of her wings against her skinned back, flying up and down the whole of the United States. But she could not find the Winchesters. At all.

 _Clearly, I need a different kind of approach_.

Her first option was, of course, to try a locating spell.

Locating spells always called for some water, sometimes cleansing purposes and sometimes as an actual ingredient. That’s how Anael ended up fetching some holy water in a run-down Episcopalian Church. She might as well go the full nine yards while she was making something.

She stood up in front of a table in some water district’s administrative offices, somewhere in Colorado. The jug of holy water stood alone to one side. In front of her there was a bowl, containing rosemary, asphodel, and a quartz she had previously soaked in another bowl with the holy water. Anael did not had anything of Dean, which would have made the whole thing easier, nor was Anael naïve enough to believe that Dean and her had forged enough of a connection between them for the spell to work just because she willed it to. When Dean was torturing Alistair, Anna had managed to get a long, good look at him. It would have seemed so strange to her human mind to manage that amount of information, but she had read off his genome in an instant, as all angels could; and Dean’s genome was something that belonged to him. Sort of.

Anael took a bit of her spit, which she then spliced until she had Dean’s whole genome. Not unlike how resurrection was carried out. Pure creation, though, so it had taken a lot out of Anael, and hindered her recovery from the brutal wounds inflicted on her.

A bottle with pure distilled water, containing several clumps of genetic material inside, was in her hand. Anael balanced it carefully atop the quartz, and chanted. She concentrated as hard as she could on the whole thing.

 _Nothing_. She frowned, confused. _How? This is as customized a spell as it gets_.

She was confident that her current hurdle was not something of Dean. Perhaps he was warded against this specific type? Gem magic had always been a fairly common go-to for noob witches, after all. Hence she tried more over the next couple of days.

After being baffled over her umpteenth spell circle, she decided to try scrying. Scrying was more difficult to ward against since it did not give an anchor, unlike a locating spell, only a look. She was current on all places on Earth up until her Fall, so she was confident if she got a glimpse of Sam and Dean going about their day, she would be able to locate them easily.

 _Okay, this is beginning to get frustrating_.

Because, once again, neither of the scrying spells she had tried had worked.

 _It’s like they dropped off the face of the Earth_.

How was Anael supposed to kill them if she could not locate them?

She hit the Library of Congress, since that was a good archive she could access that might have information on the supernatural without raising suspicions. No angel or demon would think to research here, or look for anything here, so, at least, she was sure she was at peace. One deep breath, another intake of air; her nose stopped bleeding. Anael struggled against her former humanity when she walked into the deep library rooms, since Anael knew in the plane she was she could not be seen; nevertheless, she still could not shake the certainty that the security guard would catch on to her at some point. She exhausted all the literature on magic and occultism she could find, of which there was a surpising amount. Or not so surprising if, like Anael, one was intimately familiar with how curious humans were. She did learn a new trick or two, though.

She looked idly through the first print of _Afloat and Ashore_ , by James Fenimore Cooper, trying to distract herself; she thought of her high school, when she had read the author’s other works.

Throughout her millennia of coming from Heaven to Earth and viceversa, she not only had gathered information on the manifold deities that populated the mortal world and just as many dimensions, but had had dealings with them. It was not a new idea to her to think of a favour owed she could call in; the fate of the world was at stake, plus that was how she had gotten her body back. She put the book back in its shelf.

_But, if they’re this heavily warded, I need some other way in. Fates, perhaps?_

She instantly discarded that notion, since the Fates probably would not agree with the cavalier way in which she wanted to grind destiny to a halt. _Which also leaves the Norns and the Matronae out of the game_ , she thought. She went out of the golden halls of the Library of Congress and walked about the District of Columbia.

Anael froze.

 _Of course. The gods of this land. I don’t think this will work out, but at least then I’d have tried_.

Sam and Dean were from this land, hence, the gods here would be the ones that had the most power regarding that which she wanted to do. Anael flew all the way to Alaska, just to have some secluded, far away place in which to think, and smiled. She flew away.

She raided an apothecary for some ingredients Anael stuffed in her coat, as well as some crafts stores and construction warehouses, until she had several bags of different coloured powders with her, rugs, and clay tableware.

Anael then flew to New Mexico. In the north, she walked along plains and prairies between mountains of great sandstone cliffs. Anael set down her load in a clear ground before she wandered off for a little while. Afterwards, she caught a jackrabbit, started a fire, and sat down to skin the rabbit. On one rug she set down the clay plates. She opened bags of powder, gypsum for white, red sandstone and so on.

Anael started North, as it is the way the rites gained their power, with charcoal black. She painted in the four directions two arrows over a jackrabbit, enveloped inside a square. In the corner of each quarter she drew carefully, with sand, a war ax. Then, she sat down, and waited. She waited for a full day, until she heard the sound of swift feet over dry ground near daybreak.

A tall woman with high cheekbones bore down on her.

‘Anael. In other times, I would say it’s a pleasure to see you, but to see any of your ilk is a great sorrow upon the land, these days’.

‘You don’t look like I expected to see you’.

Hastseoltoi laughed. She looked like a wild beauty, her black hair in disarray, her cheeks healthy and flushed. She was wearing a military camo waistcoat with two ammo belts criss-crossing her chest and a mean-looking rifle on her back, along with cargo pants and a utility belt full of knives and God-knew-what-else. Aside from her features, the only thing that really put in evidence her upbringing, her origins, was her forehead painted yellow and the way Hastseoltoi seemed conscious of the living things around her without really looking at them.

‘What, with the deer skin wrapped around me or an apron out of bark and the two arrows and my bow? It’s the modern era, Holy Person. Hunting has moved on, and I move on with it’.

‘And your husband?’

‘Iraq’.

Anael did a double take.

‘Why would he even go there!’

‘In the Army. Bloodshed and glory’.

 _Ah, of course_.

‘Why have you summoned me?’

‘I was wondering if I could finally call on that favour from that time in the Old Country’.

‘You’ll find that my promises are worth very little if you intend to use me for dooming the world further’.

‘So this is what your word’s worth’.

‘Yes’, put the goddess bluntly.

Anael sighed.

‘I rebelled’.

‘Quite hard to believe, coming from you’.

Anael looked at the floor.

‘Well, now you’ve seen everything’.

‘Isn’t that like sacrilege for you? Not even the Adversary would go against Yadilyil’.

Anael looked to the side, pursed her lips. That made her angry.

‘My family sacrileged against me first. **Look** ’.

Her body fell down, poor receptacle for her immense true form over a thousand feet tall. After Anael showed Hastseoltoi everything that was her mangled true form, she fell down like a comet down her body’s throat. Maintaining the warding up while being manifested in her true form was painful; it made her insides bleed again from the strain on her Grace. Anael spit out blood.

‘That is sickening’.

‘That’s what my family did to me. I’m just the appetizer for what’ll happen to everything else, Hastseoltoi’.

‘You came to warn me?’

‘No. I think you’ll always make do. I want to stop the Apocalypse, but, for that, I need the location of two people’.

‘I don’t think I’m the adequate deity for that task. You do know what my powers are, don’t you?’

Hastseoltoi was being as pragmatic as always.

‘Yeah… But these are hunters’.

‘Nice’. The goddess sat down on the rug. Anael waved at her to help herself to the offering. ‘That makes a lot more sense. What do they hunt?’

‘The most dangerous game’. Hasteoltoi just stared at her, very closely, eating. ‘You. Me’.

‘Ah, the arrogant humans who think they’re so big when they kill a wendigo or two and then they can’t deal with the big boys when they come across them. Whatever you need these two hunters for?’

‘We need vessels’.

‘I’m aware’.

‘I want to take Lucifer’s vessel out of the game, but I can’t locate him’.

‘He already has a vessel. It’s why everything is withering away as we speak’.

‘Nick is an overly tight shirt that’s coming apart at the seams. There’s a better vessel’.

‘One that can withstand his full power. One of the people you’re looking for’.

‘Pretty much’.

‘Well, that’s bad’. Hastseoltoi looked skywards and put the plate down. ‘Is there anything you can give me?’

‘Yes’.

And she told her everything that she knew about the Winchesters. Anael even drew their likeness under Hastseoltoi’s attentive stare with the coloured sand; very detailed, robotically accurate portraits.

 _I feel like I’m Sonny_ , Anael thought, remembering that Will Smith film.

‘Can you do it?’

‘Get me a map and something to write with’.

So Anael went to a gas station at the closest interstate, and got a very detailed roadmap of the whole continental United States along with a cheap ballpoint pen, before coming back. She set out respectfully the map in front of Hastseoltoi, and pocketed the pen for the time being.

Hastseoltoi bent over the map, a hand with a palm half on the red soil and half on the map to give her leverage. She was still like a statue, her presence adopting a fierce quality—the relentless huntress who always caught up to her prey. The wind picked up under the blinding sun. Her flushed coppery hand seemed to become one with the red soil, almost like taking root on it; at the same time, impossibly, it looked papery and wrinkled just as the map. Anael realised that what Hastseoltoi was seeing in that instant was much bigger; her inner strength became a mountain as she attempted to follow the trails of the prey Anael had given her as far as the land would take Hastseoltoi.

The hours ticked away in the landscape; while the day bled away in the desert, Anael painted protection sigils all around them both. Hastseoltoi sweated, her breathing was harsh; howbeit she still looked at the map with inhuman concentration, having not blinked once since she started. Her eyes like dark flintstones were not so much stones as the reflection of countless landscapes, the asphalt on small towns and cities, the boot soles of rainboots on pedestrian feet. The day became night, and Hastseoltoi’s stillness became small tremors from the effort, but she still made no movements to stop. A hand was jammed into the ground, Hastseoltoi’s arms nearly gave. She grit her teeth, but still made no signal that she wanted to stop. Her black hair framed her face.

It was just nightfall of the day after the day Anael and Hastseoltoi had started when Hastseoltoi rolled over, gasping desperately for air, pale.

‘Got ’em’.

Anael hitched her breath in surprise, desperate hope alight in her Grace. One of Hastseoltoi’s hands twitched.

‘Pen’.

Anael obliged. The goddess got up with lots of difficulty, her body shaking so much it seemed she might have been about to have a seizure. Hastseoltoi’s demeanor changed; she moved like a mountain lion, almost pouncing on the map, and circled an area somewhere in Tennessee, very decisively.

‘That’s…’

Hastseoltoi collapsed on top of the map.

‘How? That’s not even…’

Anael had had high hopes, but she had not actually expected such a precise location.

 _That shouldn’t be possible. Now… that’s just unfair_.

‘Farther… than I hoped for’.

The goddess rolled aside, feeling the soil, her land, to try to renew her strength.

Anael grabbed onto the map for dear life, wrinkling it between her hands with her trembling hold.

‘Hastseoltoi’, Anael tried to grab her attention. Hastseoltoi looked at her, wrecked. ‘Do you have any safe space you can stay? You can’t defend yourself like this’.

‘My home’.

‘Where’s it? I’ll take you’.

Hastseoltoi gave Anael her address, so the angel scooped Hastseoltoi in her arms and took the goddess to a lonely house in a plot of land; it was a bit shabby, and not particularly big. Hastseoltoi had to instruct Anael to bleed the goddess herself in the border of her land so that they both would be allowed inside. Anael doubted the barriers would have been enough to ban an angel, but she did as told anyway. Anael laid the goddess on a hammock that swung over the small porch.

‘Thank you’.

‘You… better… stop it…’, Hastseoltoi wheezed. ‘Ah… need… to collect… payment’.

‘How? How did you do it?’

Hastseoltoi’s chest heaved, looking deathly pale, until she caught her breath and her inhaling and exhaling were sedated.

‘’Tis the problem with overwhelming power’. She huffed a smile. ‘You lot smite with a thought, but don’t think outside the box’.

‘That doesn’t answer my question’.

‘They’re hunters. They are of this land I’ve roamed from coast to coast. They fall under my protection, even if they don’t ask for it’.

‘That can’t be it’.

Hastseoltoi guffawed. The goddess swung her legs to one side of the hammock, and sat so she faced Anael.

‘It’s part of it. A… connection. That helped. Also, I tracked the car’.

Anael shook her head in disbelief.

‘The car?’

‘You said they drove in a black muscle car’. Hastseoltoi bent and put her head between her knees. ‘The hunters are too warded for me to trail after them… The car isn’t’. She faced Anael again with difficulty. ‘The wards “fuzzy” the presence of the car, but it’s easier than trying to track the hunters. The weapons in the trunk just drew me in’.

 _That’s… Wow_. Like all angels, once upon a time she had not put much stock in pagans. It surprised her she still clung to that prejudice. _As expected of a huntress_.

‘Do you want me to tell your Nayenezgani?’

‘Nevermind my beloved. As long as I sit out for a couple of months, I should be peachy’.

‘As you wish’.

‘One more thing’. Anael hummed to signal she was listening. ‘For the next poor deity that gets tangled up in your problems: The hunters’ car is a sixty-seven Chevy Impala. You’re lucky I like classics’.

Anael just gaped at her.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Anael had very little time to loose—the Winchesters were fairly nomadic, and never stayed in one place for long. She only had this one night. To give herself a bit of peace and quiet, she located a quiet, empty place in La Vergne, Tennessee. There was a boulevard in front of her, and the interstate on the other side, the landscape flat, with a few trees scattered about. There was also a furniture store right there, which meant a closed warehouse adequate to her purposes was nearby. The warehouse was strangely empty save for a few crates with old furniture inside.

So she sat down, bleeding from her nose, and made herself a beacon for all that was around. Her wards would hide her well enough from angels. Anael was not confident in Hastseoltoi, but it was a lead and that was the best she had. She focused on herself, her time with Dean and Sam, the scant connection she had with Dean… Had Anael had a garrison, this would have been far easier, less risky. She meditated for hours and hours until she felt a thread of consciousness, a soul waffling about in a dream. It was disconcerting to let her presence into the fragile boundary, yet not knowing the direction, but she had definitely entered a dream.

Anael struggled to enflesh herself in the mind. She also watched the dream unfold. Two attractive erotic dancers, one in angel costume and one in a devil costume, danced to a song by Warrant she was not too focused—or interested—in recalling. Finally, Anael managed to fashion a body after her likeness in the world, and willed the dancers to part, her face determined.

Her apparition rendered Dean speechless, until, finally a name spouted from his lips.

‘Anna’.

 _That’s not_ …

Dean moved his head around quickly, as if expecting some more weirdness to pop up in his dream. Had Anael had a better connection, she would have humoured Dean, just to see his face, but she could not do that—it was difficult to project herself into a mind she could not pinpoint. Her time ticked away.

‘I was just… uh… working on a case’.

Dean’s sheepishness and his blatant lie brought a small smile to Anael’s lips, thoroughly amused.

‘This is what you dream about’.

Dean looked as if he wanted the Earth itself to swallow him.

‘This is awkward’.

The comment just drew a happy face on Anael’s visage.

‘Why are you gate-crashing my head; why don’t you just swing by the motel?’

She stepped down from the stage and sat besides Dean.

‘I can’t find you’.

‘Oh… Cas did this thing’.

He brought a hand to his chest. Anael would have loved to find out what Dean meant, but the mere mention of Castiel peeved Anael off.

‘Cas’. She turned her head. ‘Right. Now there’s a friend you can count on’.

‘What?’

Her disbelief was so great it creeped slightly into her dream-voice.

‘He didn’t tell you’.

‘Tell me what?’

Dean sounded so confused.

‘Where I’ve been’, she asserted. _Stupid pragmatist Cas_ , she thought as she realisation slowly dawned on her, her thoughts becoming voiced in the dream in a way she would not have allowed normally, had she not been straining herself to keep the line to Dean’s dream. ‘Of course not; why would he?’

‘Where have you been?’

It was a dream; there was very little Dean could hide from her. But the fact that Dean did not even try to hide his slight surprise or the concern his head filled with, warmed her heart, so she decided to tell him.

‘Prison’. She flicked her eyes upwards, just so Dean really got it. ‘Upstairs’. She thought of Naomi—her next words came laced heavily with bile. ‘All the torture, twice the self-righteousness’.

‘Why wouldn’t he have told us where you were?’

Dean just looked at her with concern.

‘Because he’s the one who turned me in’, she snapped. Dean widened his eyes. ‘Don’t look so _shocked_. He was always a good little soldier. Did anything under orders’.

‘I didn’t know’. It was so earnest, coming from Dean. ‘Are you okay?’

 _So honest_ , Anael marvelled and turned her head to look at him again.

‘No’, she answered frankly, ‘and I don’t have long. I broke out. Barely. They’re looking for me’, Anael did not had that certainty but Heaven had no tolerance for fugitives, ‘if they find me—’

‘Okay. What do you need?’

‘Meet me. Two-two-five, Industrial—’. The connection wobbled, ‘Please—’

—JUST HURRY.

She was not sure whether Dean had heard that last bit, but Anael was confident he had the address as well as a general sense she was in Tennessee as well.

Anael wiped the blood off her nose, and laid on the floor, facing upwards. As soon as she could perceive anything like Dean, she would stand. But she needed her rest, her mangled true form hurting from the reckless way she had been using her own power.

Dean was taking so long Anael wondered if he might have been on the other side of Tennessee. Anael stood up, waved the blood in her clothes away, and started pacing.

At night, as she did one more round of pacing, the wind blew in an unnatural way. It made her uneasy; not because of the sounds, but because of what might have found her. The crates started to clatter. Anael spread her wings, crouched slightly in a defensive position, while she turned to try to see what was arriving. The lightbulbs above exploded, the glass went everywhere. More than a shower of sparks, arcs of electricity formed.

‘Hello…? Who’s there?’

The temperature of the room started to climb—not by much, but enough her non-human senses noticed it.

Her true eyes saw him first—it was Castiel. His vessel was a void in front of her; he could have been a mannequin for all the life she felt in it, perfectly warded. All that flying practice he used to do had borne its fruits by the undetected manner in which Castiel had slipped right behind Anael without her noticing. It displeased her to find Castiel here, but Castiel had been cut off and wafting about in Earth, and she, while cut-off, had been in Heaven. Anael knew she could take him. She had always been the stronger malach.

The room was still slightly hotter than what it should have been, but the shaking of crates, the electricity; the phenomena had stopped.

‘Hello, Anna’, he greeted. The tension was thick in the air.

 _That’s not_ …

What Anael had been about to retort died in her lips as soon as she tasted the air..

Unhappiness fluctuated wildly in the air; Castiel clearly was having trouble keeping his feelings under a lid. Desperation, too. Misery. Tribulation. While Castiel was not exactly the most stoic of all the angels, he always held his Grace in such a tight grip he felt positively phlegmatic most of the time… This was new, a fresh gale instead of his usual breeze.

 _You’re a mess_.

She turned around. Castiel’s vessel had an impassive face, completely at odds to how his presence felt. His wings lit up very softly the space around him.

‘Cas… What happened to you?’

His wings tensed, and started to unfurl a little bit.

‘What do you want?’

‘Castiel’.

Something in her tone of voice made the other angel stay still, until she was very close to Castiel. Anael looked straight into his vessel’s eyes with her own.

 _Rebellion doesn’t suit you_.

‘The Apocalypse is destroying you’.

‘What do you want?’, he insisted.

‘To help’. If anything, the tribulation intesified in the air, pungent. ‘So, just take me to Sam and Dean and we can work right now on a plan’.

‘You can discuss that here with me, then we’ll see’.

‘Come on’, she urged him. ‘Better to have the whole gan—’

Castiel had always been more perceptive than what other beings gave him credit for, so Anael should not have been surprised when she received a punch to her gut—nevertheless, she was. He grabbed her by one wrist, so she would not escape that easily. Anael, of course, did not just stay passive, she traded blows with Castiel with her free arm.

 _What the hell is this?_ , Anael thought, alarmed. She expected Castiel to be a mere shadow of his former self, especially after he had spent so much time apart from the Host. Yet here he was, outlandishly strong, while they beat the crap out of each other. _You’ve never been stronger than me_. Yet, **Castiel now was**. It was difficult to gauge by how much… But even just a little bit stronger than her was more than what it should have been.

Anael bashed Castiel with her wings. He tried to block her with his own, while he twisted her arm, but it was difficult for him. Castiel’s wings may have been breathtaking, but they needed more room than Anael’s. A bruise was forming on Castiel’s cheekbone. Castiel parried well another blow, then had the breath knocked out of him by Anael’s wing and stumbled. He managed to regain his footing to get up close and personal with her, and swept off her feet. The movement made Anael lose momentum with her wings, however, to compensate, she got out the knife and slashed Castiel all across his vessel’s abdomen, wringing out a whinge of pain from Castiel. Anael internally cursed, since she did not quite manage to spill the guts all over the floor—now, that would have been a good distraction. Castiel and Anael had never bothered to find out who was the fastest of the both of them, since they were so equally matched, but Anael knew she had a slight edge in maneuverability. Once she started to fly, Castiel would not be able to catch her, mainly because the distance would stay the same for as long as the both of them flew at top speed.

 _If I could just get away_ …

Anael twisted in the floor, and buried to the hilt her knife in the arm that was grabbing her forearm. Castiel’s vessel screamed. He did not let go, however. Anael again thwacked him backwards with a wing, with all her might. Castiel slid all over the floor… dragging her along. He seemed determined not to let go of her wrist under any circumstances. She rolled to the side and crawled all over him. She was about to retrieve the knife, when it was her turn to scream. Castiel had buried his angel blade, non-lethally, in one side of her thigh. He sealed it within himself so Anael would not accrue her arsenal.

This was all the purchase Castiel had needed to push her and then be over her. He extended his wings, and it was terribly disorienting when Anael was yanked by the arm into a high-speed flight. This proved itself enough of a distraction for Castiel to get her close to his vessel, a hand behind her neck. Something snapped on her neck—a leather bind. Anael arched her whole body, feeling an extremely uncomfortable sensation run through it. Then Castiel was landing, and Anael was crashing on the polished wood floor of what looked like a school or a college gym. Castiel threw away the knife from his arm, and Anael extended a hand to better focus her psychokinesis on it—only to find it faltered slightly. Her other hand scrambled to the leather collar to tear it away, but a punch to her face distracted her once again.

Both her arms were pinned with Castiel’s power at the sides of Anael’s head. Her wings were held down by Castiel’s, while she struggled to free them, futilely. Castiel’s were heavier, pound-for-pound as strong as hers; laying on the floor as she was, she would never have the necessary leverage to get his wings off hers. In Castiel’s hand, a leather cuff appeared, and he secured it around one of her wrists.

‘Goddammit!’, she shrieked as another cuff was tightened against her other wrist, and the same was done to her ankles after Castiel had thrown off her ankle boots.

Without holy oil it was impossible to completely suppress an angel, but one could make it damn difficult for the angel to access their powers. Her very limbs, her wings felt a lot heavier than they should have with each bind Castiel put on her. Castiel stopped holding her down. Anael tried to get away, of course, but Castiel virtually pulled her along by the hair. She fought off as Castiel ripped the clothes off her, and then laid her in an improvised torture table she had not noticed was there with the help of his psychokinesis.

 _You planned this_.

She did her best to ignore the fear that was bubbling in her insides. Anael’s fear had nothing to do with the fact that she was naked—the clothes just got in the way of a good, methodical torture session. Anael knew that, because she had learnt the art of interrogation from Naomi… And Castiel had learnt it from her. Rather, her fear had more to do with the fact that Castiel now had as close as complete power over her got, and the memories of her stay with Naomi were still too fresh in her mind.

Now that Anael was secured on the table, Castiel took a moment to double over the small table to the side where he had gathered beforehand all sort of nasty-looking instruments, obviously in pain. Blood spilled on the floor from his abdomen. Maybe his wound was worse than she thought. Hopefully.

Anael’s true sight darted around. Her wrists and ankles were handcuffed to the table legs by police handcuffs with painted-on sigils of angelic blood, similar to the ones in the leather cuffs. The police handcuffs were snapped to chains that went to the table legs, with only the smallest amount of leeway. Her arms were not totally extended in the table; it had not be made custom for her, it seemed, and it looked like a bit of a rush job. Her wings were free, but that was just polite. Anael laughed out loud, while Castiel ignored her at the same time he gathered his breath. It was just like Castiel to observe the ‘no wing-touching if you can help it’ rule of etiquette even when he did not had Naomi’s manpower at his disposal. On the floor there was a wide circle with more suppressing symbols.

 _It’s affecting Castiel, too_.

Castiel was still an angel, and a very hurt one, it seemed. So, while suppression layer upon suppression layer had made her limbs feel like lead, Castiel was having trouble accessing his own power inside the circle to at least keep his vessel together because of course it affected him too.

Castiel turned around, scalpel in his hand, and feeling decidedly more unhappy than he had when he entered the warehouse. The blood was seeping through his vessel’s clothes.

‘What are you planning to do?’

His tone of voice sounded tired, probably from the blood he was loosing.

‘I could’ve told you if you had just taken me t—’

‘I was never going to do that since you’re out of prison’.

‘What, you underestimating me?’

In a twisted way, it was sort of amusing the utterly bland look Castiel made his vessel throw at Anael’ eyes after he, very purposefully, roamed his vessel’s gaze all over her stiff and bound human body. No underestimating going on with those security measures.

‘I think you’re underestimating Heaven’.

‘I **escaped**!’

Castiel seemed to freeze. He had never quite bothered to get the little human things right, and now that Anael had a lifetime of humanity under her belt, she finally could understand what was about his demeanor that unnerved humans, even if it did not unnerve her anymore now that she was an angel once again. His vessel looked at her, she felt the tell-tale prickle of his true sight looking, looking beyond the flesh and blood of her body, her wards… Instead, Castiel’s gaze looked at something greater, more powerful, the glimpses of the true form that could be gleaned from behind the warding. Castiel raised the hand without the scalpel, letting it rest just over her left breast, where her human heart was. He frowned, let the hand fall to his vessel’s side, and then turned its head to look into Anael’s eyes.

‘If you escaped, why haven’t you been cut off?’

‘But I have been cut off!’

_Haven’t I?_

She looked inside herself, and there was the link to…

‘But I have been’, she babbled, ‘of course I have…’

Anael had not died yet from the wounds inflicted to her true form, which spoke to her **Heavenl** —

‘They tortured me because you betrayed me!’

The misery intensified in the air, augmented as Anael let out her anguished cry and Castiel struggled even more to keep his emotions in check, both their essences mingling in the gym.

‘Anna’.

She recoiled.

‘ _Sister_ ’, Anael shivered when Castiel said that word, countless feelings bundled up in its two syllables,‘what is your name?’

She was struggling against the bindings, her wings spread wide, exerting themselves as well. Castiel looked sad. She could not concentrate adequately in saying her name.

‘You know my name’.

‘Yet, I ask’, he whispered.

She might as well humour him.

‘Ann…’

 _That’s not my_ …

‘Say it’.

‘My name is Ana…’

_Is it?_

‘“Ana”, what?’

‘Anael’.

 _It’s the name Father gave me_.

‘Really?’

‘Yes! You know this, Castiel. We’re Angels of the Lord’.

The hand with the scalp raised, and Castiel let out a tired little sigh.

‘Wrong answer’.

The scalpel dug in just above her hip, twisting. Anael grit her teeth. Castiel drew the scalpel away, and blood fell from the new hole. She struggled with renewed vigour, but Castiel put a hand above her belly and forced her to stay immobile. He was closer than she was to full strength, since he did not have sigils on him. He seemed to be thinking hard.

‘ _Sister_ ’. The way Castiel said that one word… ‘Tell me about all of your days in captivity’.

‘Is this some sick little game for you, Cas?’

‘Tell me’, he ordered her again.

‘Go to Hell’.

‘Already been’.

 _Always so damn literal_.

Anael had always wondered half the time if Castiel did that on purpose.

Castiel did not bother with a threat. She could see his Grace concentrated on his fingertips after having let down the scalpel on the table where she was writhing. Castiel stuck the index and middle fingers through the small incision, ripping it wider. The Grace _burnt_ her insides. She screamed.

‘Next time it’ll be the whole hand’, he warned.

‘You won’t waste any more Grace on that!’

 _You pragmatist_.

‘Watch me’.

She could feel on her nostrils the smell of charred meat as she screamed some more. Mercifully—for a certain value of mercy—he did not stick the whole hand in the wound. This time.

‘Fine. Fine, fine, fine; just stop!’

The bloodied fingers of Castiel’s vessel rested on the table.

She coud not believe Castiel was wasting his Grace on her. It did not fit with what she had known of him in all of their existence, billions of years old.

And she related her first day, second, third, fourth, all the while she raged at Castiel… whom she could not read in those moments, there being so many so many emotions bungled up with the waves of unhappiness going off him. Her tirade started to wind down.

‘Then Nathaniel burnt the flesh under my—’

 _That happened later_.

‘No, wait. Then I sort of coma-ed myself and—’

 _That only happened in the first day_ …

‘I… Then I had an arm almost—’

 _No, that was two weeks in_ …

‘Yes, there was an arm… And—not mine; it dug into…’

Her words finally faltered… She grasped at the threads of her coherent thoughts, trying to weave them together into the fabric of her memory and. She. Just. Could not.

 _I can’t remember all the days there. Oh, by Father, I can’t remember all days_.

Her fists clenched, her toes curled, blazing white took over her mouth and eyes just trying to struggle against the bindings. Castiel and the side table with the instruments were knocked out of the circle.

‘ **What have they done to me**!’

Belatedly, she realised Castiel had bled some more on the floor, before standing up shakily and walking up to her.

‘I, too, have experienced Heaven’s persuasion’.

 _More than you know_.

‘They…’

 _They’re manipulating me_.

Anael-not-Anna flapped her wings, breathing heavily.

‘Yes’, answered Castiel to a question she had not dared voice. Sweet regret overtook Castiel’s unhappiness, still with so many emotions in the air. Castiel put his angel blade on the table, still holding it. ‘Sister’. Anael-not-Anna’s eyes looked at the ceiling, but her true sight turned to look at him. ‘I’m afraid this’, Castiel clinked the blade against the edge of the table for emphasis, ‘is the only mercy I can give you. You’re dangerous’.

Anael-not-Anna let out a sob and squinted her eyes to will the tears away. She had survived Naomi—twice—and escaped, however rigged her escape had been—she couldn’t be sure anymore—and she was going to die like this?

 _No_.

‘Cas… Castiel… I don’t want your mercy’. Castiel tilted his head. ‘Break me out of it. Break me apart and build me up’.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on, Castiel. You’ve always been a smartypants. I don’t know what the whole re-education process entails, but I have passed to you some of my knowledge of how the process works. Figure it out!’

A long silence.

‘An— _sister_. Are—are you sure?’

‘Yes’, she hissed. ‘I want to be myself. Why can’t I be myself? That’s all I ever wanted!’

‘Yes…?’

Anael-not-Anna realised Castiel was giving her a choice… From what she knew, either intense pain or intense emotion would do, and Castiel had figured out all of this, thanks to her guidance. He was clearly reluctant to inflict pain, though. Had she wished, she could have asked of him a Communion, she realised; a deep one where everything one of them thought the other would know without reservations, instead of the customary ones to give out memories and gossip and the like, like long ago they had done between the two of them… And Castiel would have granted it without a second thought. But Anael-not-Anna did not think any of them both would deal very well with the experience of a Communion so deep once the moment had passed. Plus Castiel and her had too much tangled history between the two of them, even if she did not take into account Castiel’s betrayal—which she did. Yet, Castiel offered. And Anael-not-Anna wanted to, so much, but she did not wish for it—she was not a fool.

‘Yes’, she said with resolution.

Anael-not-Anna had survived her very first deep Communion with Keturah, long ago fighting a formless enemy they had vanquished before Castiel had even been born. They had done so in desperation and pain where Keturah had offered a little more Grace than she had intended when she transmitted Anael a memory of what had happened when Keturah had been separated from her squad and Anael-not-Anna had offered the same in turn; after which Keturah and Anael had ended up in a seemingly infinite negative feedback of all the pain they were in, and all their most desperate memories… A first timer found something so deep difficult to control… Then Anael-not-Anna had survived every war she had been into and climbed the echelons until she had command over several garrisons, then she had overcome her anguish when she had to sent any subordinate away for disobedience, then she survived ripping her Grace out to Fall… And, lastly, the most agonising pain she had ever known, the one purposefully inflicted to her by Naomi to try to twist her into something she was not.

The pain she had commanded Castiel to foster on her was nothing compared to all of that.

Castiel crouched on the floor with difficulty and came back to her side. There was a hammer on his hand.

In the end, Anael-not-Anna had been right. The pain was nothing compared to everything she had already suffered through. But her true form had been so battered, her Grace in such an state of disarray, that Anael-not-Anna chose to lock her consciousness inside of her true form at the end of her ordeal, and let the closest thing to sleep an angel had overtake her.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Anna recovered her senses. Angels did not loose consciousness, they just lost contact with their surroundings. Sleep, non-thought, was alien and puzzling. She was warm; bundled up in several threadbare blankets. Castiel was near her, keeping watch while his vessel looked out from the gabled dormer window of the rickety abandoned house in the middle of Arkansas. There were protective sigils scrabbled all over the walls, in blood and charcoal and wallpaint. With her true sight, Anna examined her body. Her Grace had done a hell of a job healing her, nothing more than bruises and scratches were left on her naked body; she even had the starts of her hardy skin growing on her true form. Soon, she would be able to discard the cannula.

‘You stayed with me’. Castiel’s wings moved a little, but otherwise he remained silent. It had been two days already, and Castiel had stayed, possibly for all of that time. ‘Why?’

‘You retreated into yourself’.

She threw the blankets off her, and sat on the bed.

‘You’ve changed’. Castiel did not answer. The intense emotions she had felt in the air in the warehouse were softer, but his emotions were still erratic, definitely. ‘Do I have any clothes?’

‘I got you some. At the foot of the bed, there’s a duffel bag’.

‘Where are my other ones?’, Anna asked while she leant and grabbed the bag.

‘In disrepair’.

Castiel had torn off her clothes before he had strapped Anna on the table, so they were probably just tatters by now. And once again he had done what she expected, to ration his Grace; not wasting it in repairing clothes. Or himself; she saw through the vessel’s shirt that Castiel had patched himself up the human way until his Grace healed him, bloody bandages over the gash she had done. The shirt seemed new, as well. It still bothered her that Castiel burnt her… that was not rationing. Or making the temperature of the warehouse rise—not rationing, either.

The duffel bag was now on the bed; Anna spilled the contents on her lap.

‘Nice. “Victoria’s Secrets”, Cas? Really? You shouldn’t get a girl these unless you mean it’, she tried to tease, although her voice came out strained.

This time, Castiel’s vessel turned to look at her, face frowning.

‘I don’t understand that reference’.

 _Of course you don’t_.

She stood, and started to put on the underwear. She could have snapped the clothes on with just a thought, but somehow doing it the human way, the way she had for the last two decades of her life, brought her a small measure of comfort. Castiel looked at Anna intently, trying to puzzle her out, but it was decidedly non-sexual; which now, as an angel, was not a strange notion to Anna at all since she no longer had shame, for that was a human thing, and she and Castiel and the rest of their brethren on Earth had seen every human body and shape since the beginning of their species.

‘Where did you borrow all this stuff from?’, Anna asked just as she had started to button up a nice sheer white shirt after she had put on a silk cream-coloured undershirt. The whole attire was very nice—too nice, perhaps. Castiel did not have enough knowledge to consider whether something was in good taste or not, or even appropriate to the occasion; he could only see aesthetics.

‘After I looked through a couple of stores in a… “mall”, I decided it’d be faster to get the underwear in a specialised store. A set your size was easier to find there. I understand they’re supposed to match?’ If anything, Castiel looked more confused when he tilted his head. ‘The clothes were on a mannequin from a store called “Forever 21”, and the boots are from “Clarks”. The mannequin’s shoes weren’t of very good quality, despite the price tag’.

Disbelief was on his voice when he said that last statement.

 _That’s fashion shoes for you_.

‘What do you plan to do?’, Castiel asked.

She put on the diamond-patterned thigh-highs, zipped the black boots on, and donned a navy blue coat that reached down to half her thighs. The whole outfit was pretty comfy. Anna extended her wings happily.

‘I was going to kill Sam’, Anna admitted. ‘But I won’t play into Heaven’s hands anymore. I’ll… smite demons. Look for a heavenly WMD. Something like that’.

Castiel examined her, then seemed satisfied Anna was telling the truth.

‘Cas’.

‘Yes?’

‘How did you know I wasn’t myself when I called myself “Anael”?’

Castiel averted his true sight, even though his vessel was still looking at her.

‘We… We’ve been through much together. You’re decisive. When you Fell, you…’

He could not get the words out.

‘Yes. I forsook Heaven. An absentee father’. She slapped her thighs and got up in one smooth movement. ‘Yet, you Fell, and you look for Father even when He isn’t around. Why?’

She had known Castiel for almost as long as he had been alive. Anna could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she had seen him hesitate so much.

‘I’ve been given… reason to believe Father hasn’t aband—isn’t as _detached_ as we thought’.

‘Right’. Her resentment bubbled. Castiel’s vessel side-glanced at her. ‘Are you just going on faith?’

‘In part’.

 _You’ve always been too fanatical for your own good_.

‘Is there anything else? Anything else at all!’ Castiel looked at the wall. ‘I heard about the Colt’.

Castiel flinched.

‘Yes’, he acknowledged. ‘In… May, God put Sam and Dean on a plane away from Lucifer’.

‘You know that could’ve been Heaven, right?’, she scolded. Castiel was hedging. ‘That’s flimsy, you know it. You’re hiding something’.

Her accusing feelings, both her stares, weighed on Castiel.

Castiel walked to the centre of the attic. He unfolded his wings from the inside of his vessel; Castiel’s wings looked as they always had. Just like she remembered. And then…

 _That’s impossible_.

He had gotten **another** pair out. Just as splendid, just as colourful.

 _No way_.

But Castiel was not done.

‘Amazing’, she breathed.

Her little brother stood before her, six wings in all. Castiel extended them, their subtle shine illuminating the cobwebs dangling from the roof beams where the sunlight could not quite get through, before letting his appendages flank him. The wings were tense. Castiel was tense, too, while he looked at her with his vessel’s chin up.

 _A seraph_ …

The only six-winged angels in Heaven.

‘Impossible. It’s…’

 _A spell. It must be, it’s—it can’t be. An illusion, more like_.

But spells had always been her thing, hers and Hester’s. Castiel was good, but he had nothing on them both, and such a spell would have been complex, difficult to maintain, and Grace-intensive. Especially if it was solid.

 _I need to make_ …

‘Can I touch them?’, she sputtered. She needed proof, certainty. Castiel blanched, his Grace’s presence spiked with nervouseness. Anna realised too late her words, just what she was asking of him. ‘I’m sor—’

Castiel just extended his wings to Anna, all three from one side. The movement of the feathers gave their slight quivering away.

 _Breathe_. There was Grace on one of her hands. _They’re so beautiful_. Like always. Anna walked until she was fairly close to Castiel.

Anna’s hand hovered over the joint of the lowest of the three wings, to give Castiel the chance to back out even if it meant leaving Anna with her doubts, but the wing stayed there. She looked at Castiel; the so-called seraph was not looking at Anna, his vessel’s face looked to the side, teeth clenched in a shut mouth, his true sight seemingly finding the roof cobwebs very interesting.

Anna caressed the wing joint.

 _It’s a miracle_.

The heat of a thousand suns burnt under it because Castiel’s Grace swam under the wing feathers, yet it was not harming her. _Because Castiel doesn’t want to hurt me_. Anna fingered the feathers’ edges very slightly, which made Castiel inhale sharply. Anna moved on to the next wing, the one in the middle. Malachim had stealth and their hard skin, grunts ready to take on any orders. Seraphim had their fire, living weapons to raze landscapes. _They’re real_. Grace tended to run hot, so Castiel burning her was not surprising—that was easy to mimick by any angel, but it cost Grace. But **this** , this furnace of Creation that was the core of a star that Anna could feel, that could have turned her body’s hand into ashes had Castiel truly gone all out, and yet, was not harming her at all, **this** could not be faked. How weird it was to have her Grace, her hand, amidst the hottest fire she had encountered yet only for it to be unharmed.

An indolent finger, brimming with Grace, traced one of the diaphanous rachises in the flight feathers. Castiel gasped. _You can feel this_. Tendrils of grace extended from her hand, and probed the wing, at the same time her palm moved over the small covert feathers, looking like little silver bells tolling in the sky and in the forests as they were disturbed by Anna’s hand. _They’re truly real_.

She was speechless.

This time, Anna turned so her body was facing the wing. She hesitated before putting her two hands in the upper wing, but Castiel still held the wing to her instead of taking it away, thus, Anna took the gesture for what it was; acceptance—an invitation, maybe. Anna’s extended hands, her tendrils of Grace roamed across the wing, from the inner joint to the outer joint, relishing in the wing’s heat; then, Anna palmed the feathers carefully. _But why Castiel?_ Anna’s hands were trembling. In an accident, she brushed past the down feathers to his steely skin, to the very base of the wing shafts… Castiel gave a full-body shudder and a harsh intake of breath.

Castiel still did not pull away. After she noticed it was up to her, Anna instantly removed her hands and her Grace retreated into her true form.

‘I’m sorry. That was inappropr—’

‘It’s fine’, Castiel interrupted. He carefully set his wings in a resting position. ‘I take it you’re convinced’.

‘Yes’.

 _Oh, Father,_ ** _yes_**.

‘Why you?’

Castiel sighed. Now that Anna knew Castiel had been remade into a seraph, his strength made sense, and now she had a rough baseline for his power. He was becoming pretty shackled to his vessel.

‘I wish I knew’.

‘How?’

_Is it because your faith never faltered, Cas?_

‘One day I just… woke up like this’.

Castiel did not seem willing to share more details, so she did not push further. He started to fold his wings.

‘Don’t— _don’t_. Leave them out’.

‘They’re conspicuous’, Castiel protested.

‘They’re…’

 _Preternatural. Astonishing. Marvellous. Prodigious, even_.

Anael knew all the words, as angels did. But only one seemed to fit.

‘…Miraculous’.

Castiel lowered his vessel’s head. He, however, returned all of his wings to a resting position.

‘Okay’.

‘Okay?’, Castiel echoed.

‘I’ll help you look for Father while I figure out what to do’. Castiel looked surprised at that, then pursed his vessel’s lips. For some reason he was unhappy? ‘First order of business’, Castiel stood to attention, ‘I need your kind of warding. It’s better than mine. I had never seen anything like that—it’s really good’.

‘It’s thanks to you’.

Castiel prayed at her the complete sigil scheme. She examined it mentally.

‘I don’t recognise it, though’.

The pattern split in two in her mind, sort of unfolding and laying itself out neatly into two other pattern schemes.

‘Ah, now I see. It was this project I had mid-Paleogene I never completed. So you fused it with this other one. Yours?’

‘Inias’ actually. The completed set is mostly you. Yours is the scaffolding’.

 _Of course, the other egghead_.

‘It’s clunky’, Castiel informed her. ‘It takes a lot of will. It isn’t much of an effort to maintain, usually, but when I’m confused I… drop parts of it’.

‘The unions aren’t very well thought out’.

‘I improvised. I was quite pleased with the result. Still, I don’t see how to solve it neatly’.

Anna toyed with the layout in her head.

‘I’ll tinker with it’.

Castiel nodded at that, then looked thoughtful.

 _Okay, now I’ve just got to ask_.

‘You don’t want me looking for God. What, is it all the blasphemy?’

‘No’. The frank answer surprised her. Anna motioned with a hand for him to continue. Castiel seemed to consider his words very, very carefully. ‘There’s something else I’d like your assistance with’.

‘Assistance with what?’

‘Help Sam and Dean Winchester with demons’.

Anna did a double take, subtly.

‘You’d let me near Sam?’

‘Now, yes’.

‘Demons? Not angels?’

‘I find myself… unable to help them in demonic matters. I can handle angels myself’.

Anna was about to protest, that she was not weak and was perfectly capable of holding her own against angels, strong malach that she was and Castiel’s former superior to boot, but her tactical mind kicked back into full gear and ackowledged that it was a good idea to keep her veering-off-course from Heaven’s plans under wraps for as long as possible, like Castiel had kept his Seraph status secret so far. She may not have been as strong, but she had access to more heavenly powers than Castiel, such as really complex healing and resurrection.

‘You’ve gotten yourself into a mess’.

‘The mess found me’, Castiel ironised.

His unhappiness spiked again, close to what it was while they were inside the warehouse.

 _Whatever it is, it’s what’s got you so upset_.

‘Okay. I’ll do that. But I better get details at some point’, she scowled. ‘Anything else?’

‘Yes’.

 _You never disappoint_.

Castiel told her and folded his other four wings as Anna set up her new wards. Then Anna followed him to a house she remembered, but her human mind did not memorise the road to. Inside the house there was a human with a lush, albeit discoloured, beard, that was reading some books on occultism and taking notes furiously on the table.

 _Robert Singer_ , she realised, knowing his name just as easily as she would with any other human.

‘Bobby’, Castiel called him.

‘Goddammit, angel!’

Anna smiled. Bobby only saw the impassive face Castiel’s vessel, but _she_ could feel the other angel’s amusement. Castiel collapsed his wings close to his true form.

Bobby wheeled his chair around furiously.

‘You should learn how to use doors someday’. He paused. ‘Who’re you, missus?’

Bobby looked at her suspiciously; of course he did. She was with Castiel and was an unkown quantity. Castiel seemed to have no intention of introducing them to each other, so she took the matter in her own hands.

‘Sam and Dean may have mentioned me at some point. I’m Anna. Anna Milton’.

‘The Fallen angel?’

‘Not so Fallen anymore’.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

His suspicion intensified.

‘It means’, Castiel spoke, ‘that she can do some things I can not’.

Castiel’s vessel may have been looking at Bobby, but Castiel’s true sight was looking at something in the corner—a rare book on Albanian curses.

‘I’ll handle it from here’, she dismissed Castiel.

Castiel’s true sight looked at her in an assessing fashion, however, to Bobby’s eyes he just went straight to pick up some random on the way to the kitchen, where he grabbed a glass and opened the faucet.

 _Oh my God. You’re drinking_.

Anna wondered how thirsty Castiel was, given that he gulped six glasses of water in a row; although Bobby only saw his vessel’s back.

‘Bobby, I’m pleased to meet you, finally’. She posed a warm hand on his shoulder, infusing his being with heavenly warmth, before sliding away. ‘Now get up and _walk_ ’.

‘That it?’ She waited patiently. ‘Feels pretty nice, but I don’t feel different. Thanks’, he told her, sceptically sarcastic.

Anna raised an eyebrow and posed the hand on his shoulder again, grabbing his soul and pushing it—nay, _commanding_ it—to do as she said.

‘Don’t be a grouch, Singer. **Walk** ’.

Bobby rose up and gave two steps, Anna’s hand still on him. She slid off her hand.

‘There you go’.

‘It’s less impressive than I expected’.

It was as if his mind remembered perfectly what to do, walking in the room. Of course it did, Anna strived to be good at what she did.

‘What did you expect?’

‘Dunno. Light show?’, he offered, gruffly.

‘Go to Vegas’.

He snorted.

‘So, princess… Last time he’, Bobby flicked a thumb to Castiel, who leant against the kitchen counter, flicking through the book, ‘was trying to kill you. Mind explaining what happened in the middle?’

‘Aside from the fact Cas rebelled?’, Anna threw back.

Quite the perceptive human, he levelled her an unimpressed stare.

Anna flicked her eyes upwards, as Castiel left the book back in its place and then went outside, clearly not wanting to hear this, and stretched her wings, slightly anxious.

‘He… showed me his wings’.

Six wings. Angels were not supposed to change, being born in one shape and keeping it, forever perfect, for the rest of eternity. Facts were, Castiel had been born a malach, and now he was a seraph… Anael wondered what his new tails looked like. _Cas also has less arms, now_. And a crown of fire, that some prophets had confused with a lion’s mane in times past. Did it clash with his colour scheme?

Bobby raised an eyebrow.

‘I thought all of you guys got a pair of those’.

‘We do’.

Castiel was unfolding two wings from within his vessel. Anael prayed him a warning not to go without her to wherever, and Castiel stood still.

‘Some are better than others, though’.

That only made Robert Singer frown, but Anael was not overly concerned with his confusion. Instead, as she flew, following Castiel away from South Dakota, she tried to picture Castiel’s new true form, how sublime he must have looked… If she was this **awed** by seeing Castiel’s wings, she wondered how Castiel felt… He had the proof of their Father’s involvement in his back all the time—and he flew with them and fought with them, twenty-four-seven. And nothing more of His was on this Earth but for His Creation, and her Father had finished His magnum opus a long time ago, so… Castiel’s wings…

 _God’s last work on Earth_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I investigated a lot in order to be respectful as possible inside the world of this fic. The annotated version of this chapter is [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12188821/6/The-Devil-Falls).
> 
> While most things you can look them up on your own without looking at my notes over FFNet or by re-reading closely the fic, I’m going to point out a couple of things, for the sake of clarity, in this chapter:
> 
>   * **Shenkiit** is used in this fic as my crude approximation of the Arabic _Šenqīṭ_ , the name of a city in Mauritania. Nowadays it’s known as **Chinguetti** , which is a transliteration dating to the French colonial period. Of course, in those days the French hadn’t arrived there, so it would’ve been anachronic to call it ‘Chinguetti’ in Anna’s memories.
> 
>   * **Ghalva** and **seir** are old Arabic measures. When Anna thinks that she’s a ghalva and half a seir tall, she’s saying she’s **326,4 m** tall. This makes her taller than Castiel in their true forms, who, for the purposes of this fic, is 319 m (the Chrysler building is 318,9 m so I rounded it up).
> 
> 

> 
> As always, please comment!


	7. Friendly Reencounters Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is a routine ghost hunt for Sam and Dean. What happens after is what is not so average, even for them.

‘You know how I said I missed the good old days when all we had were ghost hunts and simple monster stuff?’

The air was dank; January was not exactly the best time to do ghost hunts because the ground was usually frozen solid, even if there was no snow. But they had been stressed out, especially since Castiel had not seem very forthcoming with details on the angelic matter the angel had pressured the Winchesters to hand over to him, so they needed a vacation—as much as something so pleasant could be had in these troubled days. An abandoned hovel in Illinois, nick-named ‘The Shrieking Shack’ by local enterprising Harry Potter fans, had been seen by Sam and Dean as the next best place to try to relax without feeling as if they were slacking off in Apocalyptic matters. ‘The world is coming to and end’, had said Sam, ‘might as well do something useful’. Dean had to admit Sam’s idea had not actually been all that bad.

When he heard Dean, Sam stopped shovelling and just leant on it, his breath coming out in puffs of mist. He turned to look at him.

‘Yeah?’

Dean stood stiffly with his sawed-off, just looking around in a nervous fashion; his knuckles were an angry red from the cold. To not burn his hands from the cold,he was holding the gun with a yellow duster that had been a bright, almost neon colour, before acquiring all the grime and dust from travelling around endless roads in the Impala’s glove compartment. Sam and Dean were already bruised from their earlier tiff with the ghost they were hunting. They had first encountered the ghost of a little boy in the haunted house, and Dean’s side of the head was throbbing, painfully, from the tantrum the ghost had pulled off. Dean also had scratches under his clothes, from being thrown around. Also, he was sure he had more than a few bruises on his back. Sam probably had more of the same.

 _No ribs cracked this time_.

‘The good old days kind of suck’.

‘Cute’, threw back Sam.

Sam stretched his limbs, feeling his hands a bit numb from the cold in the air despite the swamp-green gloves. Thankfully, the shirts, jacket, and flannel kept his core feeling pretty snug so that it was not much of a chore to stand in the cold night and get the job done.

‘Hey!’, Dean squalled when he turned his head around, briefly, to check on Sam. ‘Keep shovelling!’

Sam rolled his eyes. Nevertheless, he did pick up the shovel again.

‘God, Dean, you have any idea how tiring this is?’

Sam had progressed in all that time, and now he was standing on a hole knee-deep in the earth, a sizeable pile of soil by its sides. The soil was dark, fertile once in spring-through-autumn, and still smelt fresh, like from rain and thunderstoms, from the geosmin gas liberated as Sam had persisted in his labour until earlier.

‘Yeah’, he clutched his sawed-off even tighter, ‘I kind of shovelled for the first hour’.

‘And I have been shovelling since three hours ago!’

‘Shut it, Sam. You’re the one who wanted to get close and personal with the soil’.

His little brother pulled a face at him, maybe thinking about irresponsible older brothers, and shovelled once.

Because Sam had been the only Winchester with enough forethought to pack gloves to grab the metal handle of the shovel for extended periods of time, and Sam’s gloves did not fit Dean. Sam had offered, in fact, to be in official shovelling duty.

‘When is Cas when you need him? I could use some patching up right now’.

The shovelling echoed in the patch of woods again.

‘Dunno, Dean. He’s your angel’.

Now it was Dean’s turn to roll his eyes.

 _Yeah, right_.

‘Come on. The guy said he didn’t ‘perch’. That seems—’

A creak.

A dishevelled little boy appeared, with striped clothes, shoes with holes in them and a confused look on his face. His eyes were round and big, his skin was pale with no freckles on it, his hair blended into the shadows of the night. He was standing on the dead grass, leaning against the leafless trees, and was looking around with his head, almost like he was expecting more people to come. His eery halo stood out gainst the dark winter night, especially with how devoid of colour he seemed, how the few sounds but for what the boy and the Winchesters made seemed to quieten around him.

‘Don’t you want to play with me, Misters?’

‘Nobody wants to play with Chucky’, Dean quipped.

A shot rang through the clearing. The little boy dissipated thanks to the salt bullet. Dean mentally took a tally of his remaining ammo; he did not want to land himself in hot water later on.

‘You don’t seem very nice’.

The boy had appeared behind Sam, this time clutching some kind of doll. He looked distressed, even his edges looked like a living static telly image in the forest. His gaunt face with an unhappy frown brought out his sickly pallor. He looked on the verge of tears. A very dark mood set over both Winchesters and the ghost present in the forest clearing.

‘Crap!’

The dread set in Dean’s gut. Sam’s shovelling turned a little bit more frantic.

‘You’re just like Peyton’. His chubby face seemed to melt off, his voice distorted. ‘He wasn’t ve…r—ry… ni… i… i… ice… too…’

The shovel flung from Sam’s hands and hit Dean in the middle of his back.

‘Dammit!’, said Sam.

This knocked out the air from Dean, falling to his knees. The trees started to shake, and the boy—Keith Langsley, found dead in 1932—started giving off unearthly shrieks. He appeared in front of Sam and Dean, in the middle of a whirlwind of branches and mud. The ghost started scratching his skin off. It was very disturbing to see the black bile flowing down his cheeks that passed for blood in the deformed visages of souls that ghosts were. The black bile pooled on his shirt collar, the stain growing bigger with each passing second; his—perhaps once brown—eyes wide open while he screamed their faces off.

Sam grabbed his sawed-off, safely strapped on his back, while Dean tried to get up, even if all it did was to make the ghost disappear to Sam’s side after Sam had shot it as well. There, Keith scratched more of his face off, and the flying mud started to pelt them.

‘That hurts like a bitch!’

‘Dean, the shovel!’

Dean crawled around, bruises and scratches forming from the heavy much, to throw the shovel in Sam’s direction. Sam twisted and grabbed it, before doubling over from pain. A screeching sound started to play, it had a certain tune…

Then the words started rattling their heads.

_One round for your ugly mug_

The ghostly boy was just standing there a bit further from them both, as his head wobbled from side to side. A fake big grin on it that threatened to split his face, a crinkle in his eyes that looked more like the strain to keep tears from falling, the chatter of his teeth for every word he pronounced was unnatural.

‘Crap’, muttered Dean.

_Another round bent over_

‘That’s sick’, whispered Sam, breathless. Dean only heard it because he was actually not that far from him, and their surroundings still were eerily quiet.

They had done a bit more planning forwards this time, since they had found out pretty fast what was going on in this hunt, allowing Sam and Dean to pack well this time around. They had found the hunt after reading a news article about how two people who wanted to go into the local haunted house had shown up dead, pelted with mud. Dean clutched the bag they had brought while Sam dug and they were both pelted.

‘Why do the creepy children sing?’, whined Dean as he probed the bag trying to find its zipper’s far end as underhandedly as possible. The ghost wasn’t really paying attention to them while it exerted his power, the child had started to skip around them.

‘ _Tis the way the money goes_

‘It’s never good when they sing’.

_Pop, boy’s no eyes now!_

Dean opened the bag with such violence he almost damaged the zipper. He instantly stuck his hand up to the elbow to rummage inside of it.

‘Come on, come on, come on’.

Dean clutched the stick he had found with all his might, albeit he was having trouble with his lighter.

‘Sam’, Keith said. ‘Sam, do you want to play with me?’

Sam shot him.

‘Whatever you’re doing, hurry up!’, he called out to Dean. ‘Hey’. He picked at the earth. ‘I think I hit something’.

The ghost appeared in front of Dean.

‘Don’t you want to be just like me? Then we can play’.

The child tilted his head in a way that reminded Dean, in a very uncomfortable way, of Castiel. If Castiel had hollow eyes and a manic grin.

 _It’s like if Cas had gone batshit insane_.

‘Holy crap!’

There were just holes in his eyes.

‘Peyton said everybody likes it’.

Frost started to cover the ground in front of Dean, icicles piling on top of each other, grovelling ominously atop the grass and bare patches of earth, very much like _The Day After Tomorrow_.

_If I had wanted to be in a damned disaster movie, I’d be baiting Lucifer!_

‘I know you will’.

The boy extended his arms, Dean kept wriggling away from the ghost. The boy was so close to—

‘Aha!’, Dean roared, triumphant. The boy shrieked. ‘Take that!’

For a brief instant, the flare lit up the whole clearing and the mud and sticks fell down. Dean had to blink twice to get his sight re-accustomed to the night; the sudden light had blinded Dean a little.

‘Dean, kerosene!’

‘Now?’

‘Yes!’ Sam was busy emptying the contents of the small bag of salt he had carried with himself. Dean ached all over, but made himself look for the bottle of kerosene they had packed up. ‘Hurry up!’

_One round for your ugly mug_

Dean threw the plastic bottle at Sam, then shot the ghost in what appeared to be one smooth motion. Another unearthly shriek rang through their bones, and gashes formed in the hibernating trees surrounding them.

‘Damn, I’m going to finish deaf if we keep this up’.

_Another round bent over_

Sam dropped his lighter on the dug-up grave, the kerosene flared up while the salt crystals crackled a little under it, not actually melting—just hot. The trees shook. The ground started to be covered in frost. Then… the cold, dead silent of the winter’s night. Dean rolled over the earthen ground, chest heaving, and closed his eyes. Sam propped himself with the shovel, using it very much like a hiking stick, to get out of the shallow grave.

A softer music, almost like coming from a music box, played. Dean peeped around through his half-lidded eyes; he was surprised. Keith was standing some feet away from them, to the side. His clothes were no longer dirty and longer dishevelled, he had a nice pair of shoes on, and seemed well-fed instead of his gaunt first appearance. Keith Langsley, boy in a non-descript shallow grave from a family plot, seemed to want to grab someone’s hand as he sung. He was smiling, happy…

_One pound for two-penny rice_

_Another pound for treacle_

And disappeared.

‘At least that’s over’, said Sam.

Sam rolled one of his arms around with the opposing hand over the shoulder, feeling his shoulder out; the joint cracked like a knuckle, making Sam wince slightly before doing it again. Then, he shook his arms and let them hang to his sides, relaxed.

‘That was disturbing’.

‘Yeah. Did you see—?’, Sam started as he pointed towards the hovel.

‘Yeah, his hands. Brrrrr. Let’s go back’.

Dean stopped, suddenly remembering something Very Important.

‘But’, the older Winchester warned, ‘we’re gonna have to take a walk’.

‘In this cold? What, are you nuts?’

‘No wet mud on baby’.

Sam just let out a long-suffering sigh and acquiesced, knowing Dean would not budge in that. The winter night was pleasant, and the woods, although dead, were soothing in contrast to when the ghostly child had made the trees shook. Sam and Dean wandered in companionable silence, even if that silence was spent with their clothes drying the muck off in the cold; something that was quite uncomfortable despite there being no wind, nor breeze—for which Dean was very grateful. They drove back to the motel at full speed in the Hoosier night, along the lonely town road. Then they got out. Sam had the key.

‘Sam’.

Dean was getting out the bags from the boot. He closed it.

‘What?’, asked Sam, who had already opened the door to their room, and was going back.

‘Did you get the rock salt?’, Dean queried as he handed Sam one of the bags.

‘I did it while you stuffed your face this afternoon. We can get right on to making the salt rounds tomorrow morning before check-out’.

‘Yippie-kee-yay’.

Maybe it was something of a commentary on the Winchester’s line of work, but the brothers fell fast asleep on the sheets with tacky ships on them without even once having an inkling of a nightmare about creepy children singing creepy songs. One could say that the morning creeped into the room, but that would have been a lie; the alarm clock blared them awake while the sky was still dark. Dean, of course, jumped out of his sleep, while Sam just opened his eyes slowly, confirmed his suspicions of there being no threats, and just stayed there looking at the walls.

The motel, like the sheets, was nautically themed. Even the ceiling was painted in blue-and-white strips; a decorative clock hung from the wall opposite to the beds in the shape of a boat rudder, trying to take attention away from the peeling wallpaper. The wallpaper had designs of ropes and knots; its once white background looked slightly yellowy from age, and had some spots that might as well have been mould or just from the years of inadequate cleaning.

Sam and Dean’s early morning went by uneventfully, for the Winchesters went into the local diner for a take-out breakfast as they so often did on hunts. The poor cashier was flustered by the two handsome men that regaled her with attention to get take-out against diner’s policies—‘just this one time it’s fine, right, sweetheart?’, had coaxed Dean with a wink, helped by Sam’s winning smile. They ate later in their room. The sunny fried eggs tasted especially delicious when they dipped the fresh toasted bread—the town had a bakery!—in the yolk. Sam and Dean uncapped their coffees; Dean mixed two sugars and one cream just to try something different, and Sam poured in three sugars in his cup, as he always did when he had the chance. The food’s warmth made the room feel slightly colder in contrast.

After they had eaten away the eggs, as well as the side salad fruit—Sam—and the bacon and sausages—Dean—they cleared away the table. Sam went to the side of his bed and got out the bag of rock table salt, while Dean went for the shells they had bought a while ago at a gun show in Mississippi a while ago. Just looking at the shells made Dean slightly nervous; not out of some fear for guns since he quite liked them, but because he remembered very clearly that just buying them in an area full of concealed-carry permit holders as a sort−of−ex-con had really tested his resolve. It had been a bit of an ordeal.

It was a tedious task, to make salt bullets. Due to long habit, drilled into the brothers by their father, John Winchester, they had perfected the proccess into something Henry Ford would be impressed by, for their machine-like efficiency. A hunter assembly line. Sam and Dean sat at the small table, facing each other, while they frowned in silent concentrationon their task, save for some small quips here and there to lighten up the job. With special dulled knifes from being so long used for this one purpose, they opened the crimps of the shells. In a tupperware container they emptied all of the lead, which chinked when the small lead balls were poured one on top of each other. The bullet shells stood up in perfect rows, Sam and Dean’s work perfectly mirroring each other. Dean had not managed to buy the usual clear-casing they employed—a bit more expensive, but for a practical reason; to be able to determine at a glance what type of ammo they were loading in their guns. To make up for this, Sam had bought and labelled a small aluminium box, where the finished rounds would be stored. Both Sam and Dean poured the rock salt carefully into each round, compacting it as much as they could inside the shell, before setting it aside and starting on the new shell. When they were finished with this, they grabbed the shells and re-sealed the crimps with the flat of the knife’s blade, helping themselves as needed by the weight from the knife’s handle, thumping the crimp shut.

They were about two hours in; Sam at some point had turned on the ceiling lam since the sky had clouded over. All of a sudden, Dean’s phone buzzed, whick shook Dean violently from his blank-out zen.

‘Put the speakerphone on, boy’.

_Bobby!_

‘Something the matter?!’

Dean could only imagine the worse. It seemed every time that Bobby called, he was the bearer of ever-worser news about how badly Dean was failing the world.

‘Oh, stop dilly-dallying’, the grizzled old man gruffed.

Dean, of course, did that. Sam scooted his chair closer to be able to talk with Bobby as well without howling from his side of the table.

‘You know this morning who dropped by?’

The deceptively casual tone made Sam raise his eyebrows, before Sam asked:

‘Are we supposed to guess?’

‘No’, Dean could almost picture how Bobby raised his eyebrows at the same time he thought that they were idjits, ‘because you’ll never guess, anyway’.

‘Is that a challenge?’, quipped Dean.

‘Them’s the facts, boys. Your angel called. Apparently, he likes books on blood curses’.

‘Cas? Seriously?’

Dean was openly frowning at the flip phone on the table.

‘He also brought a lady friend’.

That made Sam and Dean share a look. The notion seemed… Preposterous, somehow. Especially after Castiel and Dean’s disastrous night out at the ‘den of iniquity’, as Castiel had called it.

‘Come on, now you’re just joking’.

 _Because nope. Just no_.

‘I don’t do no jokes, Dean. Redhead, pretty, about five-four, five-six tall? Sound familiar?’

‘Son of a bitch!’, Dean thumped the table as he said this.

‘What’s the matter now?’

‘That’s Anna’, clarified Sam.

‘I know that now’, Bobby said in his ‘stop stating the obvious’ voice. ‘After she did her fancy mojo and healed me’.

‘What!’, shouted both Winchesters into the phone.

The line was silent for a bit.

‘Could you stop being children? Yes, I can walk now. Did you know anything about this?’

‘Bobby that’s—that’s really great’, Sam enthused. ‘And, well, only kind of’.

Dean took over from there.

‘Anna contacted me in a dream, but Cas and Sam said it could be a trap. Cas called me two days ago, at the witching hour, just to say “everything’s fine”, you know?’, Sam had to admit that was a pretty good impression of the angel’s monotone, ‘then just hung up on me. We assumed it turned out it really was a trap by the dicks upstairs or something. But, are you sure it was Anna?’

‘She introduced herself’.

Dean could only think of their, frankly, disturbing conversation the night before. Sam and Dean had to trust Castiel with so much, especially in these odd times, that any mention that Castiel might be the same as the other dicks upstairs made Dean extremely uncomfortable _at least_.

‘Did they seem okay with each other?’

‘I guess’. Dean swore he could hear Bobby’s shrug. ‘Why you ask?’

‘Nothing. Just… something Anna said’.

He looked at Sam, did a funny thing with his mouth that was something of a devil-may-care gesture, but Sam just looked at him intently.

‘What did she say?’, asked Sam.

 _Don’t put that face_ , Dean thought when saw Sam’s look of concern. _Don’t put that face, don’t turn your head like that—goddammit. Little brothers_.

‘Anna said she had been upstairs. In a dungeon—the medieval kind, not the fun kind. And…’. Dean pursed his lips. ‘That Cas was the one who had handed her over to them’.

Sam almost jumped in his seat as he looked at Dean. His stare said something like ‘Cas? Really, are you sure?’. So Dean stared him down with his ‘I’m pretty damn sure’ look. Since he was the one who dreamed it all.

‘That’s very interesting’, Bobby drawled.

‘Interesting how?’

This time, Sam’s earnest tone of voice was directed at full-effect towards Bobby singer, who sighed and obliged.

‘It don’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things, but the lady angel told me she was hanging out with Castiel because Castiel showed her his wings’.

‘I’m sorry’, Dean shook his head, ‘is there some _innuendo_ I’m not getting?’

Sam just frowned.

‘That’s what I’d like to know, too. There’s something else. I’m getting weird news from hunters from around Utah, so there’s something big coming. Really big. Get on the road after you’re done wherever you’re’.

Bobby hung up.

‘Well, that was interesting’, mumbled Sam. ‘Also, a bit of good news. We kind of needed that. Good for Bobby’.

‘Yeah’, agreed Dean quietly.

Dean picked up his phone, and then made it dial furiously Castiel, as many times it took until the bloody angel answered. He may have damaged one button or too in his hurry.

‘C’me on, you bastard’.

This time, Castiel picked up fast.

‘Okay, Cas, we really need to talk about—’

‘Where are you?’

 _What the hell_.

‘What? No, you’re a dick, you know that? How could you—’

‘Where are you?’

The tone was sterner, gruffer, and the kind of tone that, last year, indicated that Castiel had had it with Dean not following Heaven’s orders. Castiel could be awkward in some regards, and Dean thought the had something of a friendly rapport with the rebel angel, but the angel was honestly still a bit terrifying. Dean sighed and just told him the address.

‘Anna will be helping you out as well’.

Castiel hung up. Dean scowled at the phone.

‘Hi, Dean’, a soft voice said from the other side of the room, making both brothers stand up and get their hands to the nearest gun. They had almost toppled their chairs in the process.

‘Jesus! Can any of you stop doing that?’

‘You’re going to give us a heart attack one of these days’, whispered Sam.

Sam rubbed the back of his neck when he glanced at her. Dean did not know it was because she was an angel now, something mightier and greater that tried to pierce through the layers and layers of wards Castiel had put on them. Demons were deadly afraid of angels… And Sam still had too much demon blood in him.

‘Sam. It’s… good to see you’.

When Sam and Dean turned to see her, Dean was struck speechless. Anna’s pale skin seemed to glow in the morning light, her dark auburn hair looked, as her lips did, almost like blood. It fell in soft curls around her face and, on the top part, she had done a comb-over to the side. She had wide, kakhi-coloured shorts on, and thigh-high diamond-patterned socks with black combat boots.

‘The clothes…’, blurted out Dean. Anna just smiled. ‘It’s a good look on you’.

‘Yes, I like them too’.

A shiver went down Dean’s spine. Anna had given him a secret little smile just like that one ‘last night on Earth’, and she looked _amazing_. But there was something else about her now, so Dean felt a prickle on the back of his neck now, not unlike what he constantly felt around Castiel.

‘Castiel let me listen on the conversation because I wanted to see you’.

She walked up to them, and touched softly their foreheads with two fingers. They felt better, renewed; no wounds, no bruises. Their tiredness had even been wiped from their bodies completely. It felt different from when Castiel did it… They both infused their beings with something, something warm and generous; however, while Castiel’s felt like midday on a warm spring day, cool yet warm, Anna’s was a bit dry—not in an uncomfortable way—and brought to mind infinite sand dunes at the shores of the sea.

‘That’s much better’, Anna nodded at them. ‘How’s the war going?’

‘War?’, voiced up Sam.

Sam and Dean glanced at each other, then looked back to Anna carefully.

‘You mean the whole Stop-the-Apocalypse business?’

Anna again nodded, and gave them a little space, which subconsciously relaxed them. Of course, while it was not something Sam and Dean thought about in that precise instant, Anna did know more about how humans felt and interactions in general than Castiel did. Sam and Dean, instead, frowned at Anael.

‘It is a war, Dean. Or that’s how Heaven and Hell are playing it’.

Dean gestured at his chair, Anna waved her hand. Sam and Dean, gentlemanly as always, felt a bit uncomfortable at that. Sam glanced at his chair, but Anna just walked over to the nightstand. The Winchesters just shrugged, and sat down. Dean turned his chair around to better look at Anna, while Sam started to put the salt rounds they had made this morning on their new box with due care.

‘“Know your enemy”, I see’.

‘And your friends’. She grabbed the telly’s remote and put on some news. ‘Cas sees it that way. I see it that way’.

On the news they were talking about a catastrophic drought in Pakistan, that had been leaving many people starving due to the lack of rainfall in the Indus basin. There were grainy shots of fallow fields and barren countryside. The sound was low-quality, but that was more the telly itself than the sound, hopefully.

 _This is so out of our paygrade_.

‘And it affects the whole world like one’.

‘Even that?’ Dean pointed to the telly.

‘If I had to guess, it’s probably Famine. Or one of his lackeys. Think big’.

‘The Horsemen have lackeys?’, asked the two brothers as one.

Anna looked between them, before nodding.

‘Of course. Some, like Death, come with the job—the reapers’, she had clarified when she saw the looks on the faces of the brothers. ‘Pestilence… Now, I don’t know him personally, but I do know _of_ him, and he’s very manipulative. As I understand it’, Anna clasped her hands, ‘he sometimes has human followers’.

‘Why would anyone want to follow a Horseman?’

Sam was so shocked, his tone of voice raised as he spoke.

‘Fear. It’s a powerful thing’. Dean and Sam looked at each other again. ‘Especially in ages past, when people didn’t even _know_ where diseases came from… There weren’t even _cures_ as you think of them now, you just went to your priest or witch doctor and hoped you wouldn’t die. And here comes this awful thing and tells you no illness will strike down you or yours if you serve him, you take it. As simple as that’.

‘So, um’, Sam spoke up after a little while. ‘You and Cas. Working. Everything alright?’

They noticed how Anna thinned her lips. She nodded, nevertheless.

‘Yes’.

‘So… did he do the light show?’, probed Dean.

‘What light show?’

‘Yeah, Dean, whatever you’re going on about?’

‘Bobby said Cas showed you his wings, so I wondered if he did it for you’.

A look of realisation slowly dawned on Anna’s face.

‘ _Oh_. So he did it for you!’

‘He has done it for people before?’

‘Seriously, guys, what light show?’

‘Right. Okay, so Cas’, Anna looked straight at Sam, ‘isn’t the most patient angel in the world’.

‘Yeah, no kidding’.

‘Okay’, nodded Sam for Anna to keep going.

‘This isn’t the first time he’s had to meet humans—sometimes I’ve been there, sometimes he was on his own elsewhere. So when he must impart… revelation, he doesn’t have the—the, you know, kind of friendly, uh, demeanor to build trust with the human. So he just terrifies them with lightning and thunder, and the shadow of his wings, and then he goes all like…“I’m a messenger of the Lord”, and people aren’t going to argue with him at that point, honestly’.

‘Wait’. Sam turned to Dean. ‘You saw his wings?’

Sam’s face was all hope and disbelief.

‘Kind of’.

‘Honestly, if there are folk stories about the fearsome heralds of the gods, then that’s probably because of something Cas did’.

Dean pictured for a moment Castiel, dressed just as he was now, walking up to a caveman and then just making lightning rain from the sky. Dean snickered.

 _Actually, that seems pretty likely_.

‘Wait’, said Sam, ‘wouldn’t people before have believed that sort of thing more easily?’

Anna sighed.

‘People aren’t stupid, Sam. They’re always demanding proof. And then there are the fringier ones that take everything at heart—pretty much like today. Just add more superstition’.

‘Okay, so he did show you his wings?’

‘Well’, Anna drawled, ‘they’re a pretty nice set’, she teased.

‘Good-looking?’

‘Dean, if you could _see_ Cas, you’d say he’s actually very pre—he does make one handsome angel’.

Dean smiled, Sam snorted, but Dean’s heart felt a little pang as well.

‘I wouldn’t have thought he had it in him, the prude’.

‘Cas isn’t a prude. We have seen every act in any form since the beginning of the human species. Humans are pretty creative around sex’.

‘Well, that isn’t the impression he gave me when we hit up that brothel’.

Dean froze when he realised what he just said. Sam and Anna just looked at him in stunned disbelief.

‘Did you take Cas—Dean, how could you? The guy’s an angel!’

‘He did call it a “den of iniquity”, I suppose’, Dean said as he sheepishly scratched his cheek.

‘I would have so paid to be a fly on that wall’, said Anna.

‘What? Really?’

‘Yes, Dean. He must’ve been so confused’.

Dean remembered that time very well. It had been hilarious.

‘Definitely. I mean, even with a beautiful girl, he just wouldn’t, you know’.

‘He just doesn’t get it’. Anna shook his head. ‘He’s only ever been with angels. I mean’, she raised a hand and waved it, ‘Cas gets it on a _biological_ level, and why people like it, but he doesn’t follow the thought process, if that makes sense’.

‘Wait, angels have relationships?’, cut in Sam.

‘Yes, we do’.

‘Last time we talked you sort of implied there wasn’t anything like love in Heaven’.

‘I was… still human. I had all the memories, but I didn’t have the _mind_ to understand them. But… it wasn’t inaccurate’.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Anna plopped down on the closest bed.

‘Angels, we…’ She looked upwards, trying to figure out how to say it best. ‘We’re kind of a partial hivemind. We’re individuals but all of our communication is about sharing. Just sharing. Thoughts, feelings, memories. And…’

‘You like bees?’

‘It’s not… inaccurate’. Anna sighed. ‘Look, it’s very _1984_ , alright?’

‘That sounds like crap’, Sam said. He actually looked slightly dejected.

‘Oh. Oh, no, Sam; humans reach Paradise, we don’t live among the souls—it’s different’.

Dean was impressed that Anna minded Sam’s feelings that much.

‘Okay’, nodded Sam. ‘So “Big Brother is watching you”?’

‘Yes. There’s no loyalty or trust between each other, only to… God’. Anna looked very unhappy. ‘We’re not supposed to let our feelings run amok… Or our thoughts. Even if you’re in a relationship and you come across any feelings that could be… seditious, I suppose, you report it’.

‘What happens to the reported angel?’

‘Something not very nice, Dean. They get… re-educated’.

‘Re-educated?’

‘Total brainwashing, _Clockwork Orange_. Heaven’s pretty efficient at that’.

‘Holy crap, Anna, dystopian much?’

That’s when Dean got it, why Castiel had been so stand-offish and why Dean had to beg him to rebel, and what Anna probably had gone through.

_All the torture, twice the self-righteousness, huh?_

Eager to change the sad conversation topic, Sam brought up something really important.

‘Um, Anna’, interrupted Sam. ‘Will you be around now? Where’s Cas at?’

‘Castiel’s busy’. She sighed, then looked at them. ‘Do you mind if I stick around for a bit?’

‘Nope. Nope.’

‘Nope at all’.

Anna laughed at their embarrassment. It was the first time Dean had listened to her laughter, the first time she was not brimming with sadness or the seriousness of an impeding disaster, and it was precious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some things to keep in mind for the rest of the fic, given coming chapters:
> 
>   1. This is a long-fic. Buckle up for the ride.
> 
>   2. The **only** romantic relationship for Castiel will be Castiel/Lucifer, know this.
> 
>   3. The endgame is for Castiel and Lucifer to have a functional, healthy relationship. Eventually. Trust me on this.
> 
>   4. Next chapter **won’t be** ‘Friendly Reencounters Part II’. That comes a bit further down the line, and you’ll see why that is.
> 
>   5. Characters are allowed to have a life outside of the main plot, so there will be allusions to their past, romantic or otherwise, and/or the stuff they have been up to.
> 
> 

> 
> As always, please leave your comments :) They give me energy!


	8. A Longing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After chatting with Anna and having the fright of his life—an increasingly common occurrence, much to his distress—Castiel ends up in Spain to catch up with Duria. In Spanish, there is a saying, Castiel: ‘Wiser is The Devil for being **old** , than for being The Devil’. Perhaps you should cut back on the taunting a little?

Castiel was with Anna and it was exultation and heartbreak all at once. After visiting Bobby, Castiel was inspecting some old, hidden Mayan ruins, dedicated to Itzamná, their Father. The young forest had encroached into the ruins, which consisted only of foundations, a couple crumbling temples that had lost their elaborate roofs, and many, many rock steles bearing countless glyphs. Vines and fragrant flowers hung in the way, which Anna parted with a whisper of Heaven from her and Castiel’s way so that nature remained as undisturbed as possible, thus allowing no one to pick up their trails. The colour of Anna’s red-soil wings blended somewhat into the thin tree trunks of the surrounding Petén rainforest, while Castiel’s were hidden, as was his newly-acquired habit. Light specks penetrated through the canopy; it made the texture of Anna’s wings stand out from within the forest, at the same time they made Castiel’s damp overcoat look as if it was made of dried leaves and parchment.

‘What are we doing here?’, she asked while reading a stele about the feat of some long-ago dead ruler.

‘Looking for clues’.

‘Yes, I know you’re looking for Father’, she replied, peeved.

Her vessel’s voice was soft and attractive to humans. Castiel once again asked himself—but would not ask out loud, not ever—if she had chosen her human parents while she was Falling because they could give her human body an outstanding voice. Anna’s true voice was, to Castiel, one of the most beautiful things he had ever heard in Creation.

‘What I’d like to know is what, exactly, are we doing here’.

‘Looking for clues’, Castiel repeated. While his vessel’s eyes examined the doorway to a room, his true sight looked at the other angel significantly.

‘Clues’.

‘They might be anywhere, Anna’.

Castiel liked and despised the name she had claimed for herself, all at once.

‘I didn’t realise’, Anna whispered, her vessel’s visage soft at the same time her smooth Grace coloured the air between them with understanding and discontent. ‘Why here, specifically?’

‘It’s as good a place as any’.

Anna’s vessel crouched, she had probably sensed something. Castiel left her to it.

‘What do you think are our chances of finding anything useful here?’

Castiel thought back to what he had surmised so far, and the previous leads he had had.

‘If we find something, I think it’s going to be some fiffteen hundred years out of date, at least’.

This made Anna’s vessel stand up in alertnes; she turned its head and looked at him shrewdly.

‘That’s a weirdly specific statement, considering we have nothing right now’.

‘Accurate, nonetheless’.

Her vessel rose up, and strode up to his.

‘You’ve been searching for a while now, then. How’s it been going? How’s it been really going?’

‘I have a lead, but that trail is cold until my… source contacts me’.

‘Source?’

Castiel did not think he had ever felt sore about something, but he definitely struggled to keep his sadness in check when he thought of the fact that he had encountered two pagans that had talked to his Father, and had strutted through old ruins in Mongolia and of old Ebla Hayya where His holy presence had been, yet Castiel, not even _once_ …

‘Cas?’

This shook Castiel from his inner thoughts. He did not think he could make his Grace into an abyss of tranquility anymore, because there was too much tribulation and desperation bound up within himself, but Castiel could, and did, bottle up all of his sadness in order to turn his full attention to Anna’s question. Still, if the tone of his answer, his vessel’s voice, came a little bit… undone, it was ignored by them both.

‘He… talked to Him’.

Anna’s wings flapped angrily.

‘Cas, I really don’t know how you do it. Let alone find any leads at all’.

Castiel’s vessel side-glanced her.

‘You’re not going to like that answer’.

 _Have faith_.

Anna directed him a murderous stare with her true sight, while she thinned her vessel’s lips in an unhappy frown. Anna, even after all these years, still knew what Castiel was thinking. It was a look he knew well, one that she had sported for years on end after he had destroyed every thing they once had been but their friendship, the last look she had directed at him when Castiel had betrayed her.

‘You’re right’, Anna conceded in an extremely taxative tone; her Grace felt so twisted and fed up that Castiel knew he had better stuff it. ‘So we have nothing’.

‘Yet’, Castiel told her gently.

‘Then I think you should attend to your own business’.

Castiel did not even try to cover up his confusion at that strange statement. Anna sighed.

‘I noticed you were drinking earlier; what else?’ Castiel ignored the question—tried to. He found difficult to ignore Anna. Anna sighed some more. ‘I bet you’ve been hungry, too’.

Silence.

Anna walked closer to him.

‘Castiel’.

‘Everything tastes like molecules’, Castiel allowed, resigned.

He had tried to eat some on some occasions since his vessel’s stomach had started acting up on its own more as time went on, however, as soon as he put the food in his mouth it still was as unpalatable to him as when he had been fully-powered. Considering how happy Gabriel seemed to be around candy and how Balthazar had indulged in food and drink, Castiel had pondered whether there was something wrong with him. He had resigned himself to the thought that his human existence would probably be cut short by starvation if things went on like that.

‘Still?’ Castiel nodded. ‘Then you need to get used to eating’.

‘Don’t you think I’ve tried?’

His irked tone of voice caused Anna to roll his eyes.

‘I’ve an idea’. Castiel hummed, prompting her to continue. ‘Come’. At Castiel’s reluctance, Anna snapped. ‘Castiel, these ruins aren’t going anywhere’.

Castiel looked at her with unhappiness.

Anna’s vessel reached to him and grabbed his vessel’s hand. Her Grace had perked up. Anna dragged him in a flight; he barely had time to get his wings out. Anna instantly let go of his hand once they had landed in a quiet town in Kentucky… her home town. She beckoned Castiel to follow him, which he did, annoyed.

‘We‘re wasting time’.

Angels, in a sense, moved faster than their vessels, so when his vessel’s heartbeat tried to quicken, he already knew to smooth it out.

‘I think you have too many irons in the fire at once’, she chided. ‘You need to take better care of yourself’.

She would not know, but his Grace almost spiked happily at her concern.

They came out of the alley they had landed in, and went into a quaint ice-cream parlour with soft lighting and peeling posters plastered on the walls. The shiny round seats were around immaculately clean alimunium tables. Anna shifted to an unseen plane with her wings, went to the back of the parlour, and came back with a bag, and then signalled Castiel to follow Anna in a short flight. They landed in a park, near a bench in a quiet corner, a graffitted wall at their backs. Anna sat.

‘Here’. She grabbed a bottle from the bag. Castiel eyed her impassively. ‘Come on, Cas. It looks weird that you’re standing up alone’. Castiel sat down. ‘Take it’.

‘It’s flavored water’.

‘Yes. I think you may have tried to jump where you need to learn how to walk in the first place. I remember when you wouldn’t even drink water’. Castiel eyed her, but silently conceded her point. ‘So drink this, see if you like it’.

‘Fine’.

 _Actually, I remember I didn’t mind alcohol all that much_.

He shut that line of thought, as well, since it reminded him of Ellen and Jo. He uncapped the bottle and eyed with doubt the cherry-flavoured drink. Still, he gulped. His Grace lit up in surprise, but Castiel did not stop until he had drank it all down.

‘So?’

‘It was nice’.

‘Try this’.

This time, she got out some packaged gelatine.

‘No’.

‘No?’

‘No’.

‘You’re being childish, little brother’.

Castiel knew that was a sort of insult, by human standards. Castiel had never been a child—young angels did not have to be cared for or be taught how to _speak_ —so he just raised his vessel’s eyebrows and eyed the gelatine, without feeling insulted at all.

‘No’.

‘What, you don’t like how the molecules look? I admit, they do look a little bit mushed-up together, so perhaps salt might be more up your all—’

‘I can’t see molecules anymore, Anna’.

Surprise once again emanated from her.

‘Really? It’s difficult to try to gauge your exact power level, after your upgrade. To what level can you see?’

‘Cellular. Barely. More like tisular, really’.

‘And you are still stronger than me?’ More surprise. ‘Okay. So no Jell-O. How about this?’

It was a flavoured milk tetrapak, strawberry-flavoured.

‘Strawberry? I thought chocolate was customary’.

He knew there was a chocolate milk carton in Anna’s bag as well.

‘It tastes like cherry’. Now not only Castiel’s doubt was apparent in his vessel’s stare, but his Grace was spiking in doubt. ‘From a human perspective, at least. These artificial flavors, _honestly_ ’. Anna shook her head. Castiel did not move. ‘Come on, Cas’. She shook the tetrapak. ‘I swear it kind of tastes like your Grace’.

‘Like my Grace’, Castiel repeated, sceptical. He wondered if he should feel insulted by that.

‘Yes! I’m far from the only angel who has told you that you taste sweet’.

‘I don’t care much for compliments’, Castiel reminded her.

‘How nice to be you. _Some_ of us have to treasure them’.

Now Anna sounded peeved again. Castiel rolled his eyes.

‘It’s not like your Grace isn’t nice’, pointed out Castiel, thinking of her dry, sunny Grace of glittering geodes and salt crystals.

‘Not the point, Cas’, Anna huffed, averting her sight. ‘And I’d prefer if you wouldn’t make those sort of comments’.

Castiel looked hard at his vessel’s hands, before replying softly: ‘It doesn’t make it any less true’. Just so topics changed, he took the tetrapak and put the attached straw through the little aluminium-paper−covered hole. Castiel sipped. He gave Anna back the tetrapak.

‘Are you offering me some?’

‘If you like’.

Anna frowned, and drank some. More surprise emanated from her.

‘Hey, I still like this!’, and drank it all excitedly, much to Castiel’s surprise since Anna had once had the same opinion about ingesting foodstuff as Castiel. ‘Sorry about that. Did you like it?’

‘I taste awful to humans’, he proclaimed in a serious tone, although Anna knew him enough by now to know when he was joking. Even if she was not much for jokes currently.

‘Ha, ha, very funny. Now, try this popsicle’.

‘Lemon?’

‘Well, I think you should get used to eat healthy’.

 _Then you should re-think your affections for Dean, sister_.

Castiel ate the ice lolly, still with some fruit bits in it.

‘This was barely edible’.

‘Was it the sour taste?’

Castiel thought on that for a little while.

‘I think… I liked the sourness’.

Anna offered Castiel the chocolate milk tetrapak.

The whole thing reminded him when he had been first assigned to Anna’s command, Yocheved his captain, when he had been young and Heaven had determined his talents would be better employed in melée combat despite being a somewhat midling malach powerwise, and Anna had taken notice of him through Balthazar.

Castiel wished Anna and him could remain like this, but he knew these were glimpses, really, and they would go back to being tense, as they had been ever since Castiel had encountered Anna, the escapee.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

When Castiel had flown off after preparing a rudimentary interrogation set up in an Ohioan gym that had been closed off due to roof leaks, he had not known which of his siblings would show up, but Castiel had certainly not been expecting Anna. There she stood with her red wings relaxed on her back, in the middle of an empty warehouse, at the address provided to Dean. The insides of her vessel were very damaged.

Castiel wanted to let out a cry of grief, but he would not give up the element of surprise. Yet, finding Anna here…

 _Why?_ He thought better of that, though. _How, rather_. And his mind came to a rather alarming conclusion, a conclusion which made his control snap. _When are my brethren going to give me a_ ** _respite_** _?_

His Grace rose up in anger; his presence, his feelings—the crates shook violently, the lightning he refused to call from heaven roiled instead inside the lightbulbs, caged, until the lightbulbs were destroyed and the electricity filled the sides of the room, unbidden.

‘Hello… Who’s there?’, Anna called out.

His newfound fire brimmed under his vessel’s skin, and the warehouse, when he landed behind Anna, was hotter, noticeably so to an angel. Castiel had shut down his anger by that point, however, he struggled with so many of his other feelings, not helped at all by his recent run-in with Lucifer. He actually half-expected to be jumped by the archangel.

‘Hello, Anna’, greeted Castiel.

Anna turned around, her vessel looked only slightly dishevelled.

‘Cas… What happened to you?’

It turned out Anna still cared.

_What is the play?_

He warily started to fan his wings in preparation for a trap.

‘What do you want?’

‘Castiel’, she said, stern; so much like _before_.

Castiel could never refuse Anna anything without good reason ever since their first time. So he let Anna walk over to him. _This is a bad idea_. He had never felt so troubled before.

‘The Apocalypse is destroying you’.

Castiel agreed wholeheartedly with that statement in his own mind. Rebellion was not supposed to be easy.

Anna cared.

But only for whatever words would make Castiel lead her to Sam and Dean, as it turned out; probably as an assassination attempt. Should Dean die, he would be at the mercy of Michael. Should Sam die, he would be taken out of the game permanently if he was ferried to Heaven. So Castiel fought and dragged Anna off to Ohio after disorienting her. He took her mortal trappings away from her and cuffed her to the table. He felt dizzy as he bled, kneeling over his table of instruments. Then Castiel had turned to her, and Anna had acted… difficult.

 _It’s not like you to overestimate yourself_.

Anna had to have been acquainted with Heaven’s prisons, having actually worked there in her youth, Castiel was sure. It also was odd that Anna wanted to stop the Apocalypse still, since he knew her well enough to know that her sentiment was not a ruse—it was extremely at odds with what Heaven would demand in this situation. And then, he had examined her Grace, healthy and vibrant unlike his, and had asked why she had not been cut off. Anna had struggled to answer, then she deflected:

‘They tortured me because you betrayed me!’

The voice of Anna’s vessel was raw, and it only underscored the calamity she was feeling, that had been inflicted because of him. Anna struggled against her shackles, her cuffs, and Castiel questioned philosophically what they had both done that they were put in this position.

 _You can’t answer my question. Interesting_.

‘Anna’.

When she physically seemed to shy away from her name, her chosen name Castiel had known at soon as he had heard it when he had met Anna face-to-face again that Anna had picked it when Falling to eschew God, Castiel knew Anna had probably been re-educated. But he needed to confirm it. Castiel needed to know it was not Anna who had chosen to kill Sam and Dean.

‘ _Sister_ , what is your name?’

‘You know my name’.

_Do I? What have they made you repeat?_

‘Yet, I ask’.

Anna was struggling with her name. Castiel shut his vessel’s eyes tightly, sadder than he would have been on any other occasion should Anna had told him they were both Angels of the Lord, and sighed. His hold tightened on the scalpel he had picked up a while ago.

‘Wrong answer’, he said at the same time he pushed the scalpel in the spaces between the organs of Anna’s vessel.

_Is this really your choice, sister?_

A few minutes later, he knew what to ask. And he had his answers; his Grace simmered with confusion and horror at what had been done to Anna. Even his vessel paled. She seemed not to notice when she repeated herself, until the memories started to become to fuzzy and holed and Anna could not keep up the façade of her self being in her right mind.

 _I’ve never known re-education to be like that_.

Anna’s Grace was still healthy and bright, so when she railed against the Heavens, quite literally, she overpowered the binds in a way Castiel most likely could not; her rage sent him flying across the floor. He stood, trying to reassure her for the inevitable end.

 _I’m sorry_.

‘I’m afraid this is the only mercy I can give you’, Castiel said as he tapped his blade lightly against the border of the table.

‘Cas… Castiel… I don’t want your mercy’. Castiel was baffled. What did she want, torment? ‘Break me out of it. Break me apart and build me up’.

 _You’re asking the impossible of me_.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come on, Castiel. You’ve always been a smartypants’. While hardly the best circumstances, it was always flattering to hear that, as opposed to most _nice_ things he was used to hear. ‘I don’t know what the whole re-education process entails, but I have passed to you some of my knowledge of how the process works. Figure it out!’

Castiel sorted through memories. A lot of them.

 _Of course, the Grace goes through a great strain_. The stomach of Castiel’s vessel lurched. _That’s how the torture figures in. Sort of_.

Castiel still lacked details, of course. Re-education had to be significantly more sophisticated than that, although, if the basic concept was this…

‘An— _sister_. Are—are you sure?’

Castiel was reluctant.

‘Yes. I want to be myself. Why can’t I be myself?’ Castiel averted his true sight, thinking. ‘That’s all I ever wanted!’

 _Don’t ask that of me, sister_.

‘Yes…?’, said Castiel as he lit himself up with his Grace. He did not know if Anna, with the binds that dulled her senses, would realise his intended meaning. Even though Castiel hated being so obtuse, he could not get out the words to propose a connection like in the old days so that Castiel’s memories would abash her mind… When her eyes focused on Castiel’s vessel, she diminished the heavenly presence of her Grace from the side closest to him; thus Castiel knew her answer even before she spoke, even if she did not realise half of what she was doing anymore.

‘Yes’, she said with absolute certainty.

It almost physically pained Castiel that Anna would rather choose torture than entwine her Grace with his, but Castiel had never managed to refuse Anna anything without good reason for a long time now…

So, with a hammer, Castiel caved in her vessel’s chest.

With his vessel’s hands Castiel burnt her human shell.

With his true voice, Castiel questioned her until she begged ‘no more!’, for several hours straight… Until he was sure, to his satisfaction, that Anna was herself.

Anna became just an unconcious vessel with an immobile, insentive angel inside, much to Castiel’s surprise. Which left him with a problem of what to do with his sister. His vessel was hurt as well, and weakened from having lost so much blood. Castiel had not exactly been easy on his vessel lately. The gym was sufficiently warded that, even if Castiel absented himself for some minutes, nothing was going to enter and prey on the still angel on the table, but Castiel did not want to take any chances.

First order of business was to head to the school’s infirmary. On the way, he picked up needle and thread from a craft’s project at the headmistress’ desk. He took the vessel’s ruined shirt off, and sew himself up. In a day, Castiel would be able to do away with the thread, plus he was not so powerless that the rebel angel had to worry about infections. After he had bandaged himself, he shoved in his overcoat’s pockets some more bandages for when he cut the thread of his wounds. After mulling it over for a bit, Castiel took off the sheets from the infirmary’s beds, threw in the school’s garbage dumpster the bloodied shirt, and went back to the gym. The middle school students would probably be alarmed at the bloodied table with bloodied handcuffs standing on a bloodied floor and with bloodied instruments strewn all across the floor, but Castiel had bigger concerns right now than doing housekeeping, honestly.

Back in the gym, Castiel broke the cuffs off, not having bothered to steal the keys as well since he had only intended them for a single use. He bundled up Anna in the sheets, with care, so that he did not touch her wings. That had taken him some ten minutes, because his torso had hurt ‘like a bitch’—to quote Dean.

With some paint he had found in the school’s storeroom, he painted some more wards. Unbeknownst to Castiel, that, combined with the crime scene, would cause a big moral panic. Not that he would understand the confusion surrounding perfectly acceptable precautions that everybody should know, of course. Anna could not remain there forever; classes were bound to start at some point, and the hex bags Castiel had planted, to confound people so they turned away from the gym and also made them believe they heard nothing, would eventually wear off, so Castiel arbitrarily picked a state and looked for a suitable hideout in it; not before calling Dean. Dean Winchester had sounded grumpy, muttering something about the unholy hour Castiel was calling.

A two-story house stood amidst the empty field of maize, although Castiel could not imagine why it had not been torn down until know—there was a local legend that it would bring bad luck, not that Castiel knew that. He went back to the gym for the paint, and started to apply the sigils in the attic, and on the inner walls of the house. There was an abandoned bed, which Castiel dragged upstairs. He put the bed to the back of the attic, from where there were no obvious ways out. Should Anna want to attack Castiel, Castiel wanted to have the upper hand before she recovered her senses. He then brought Anna and put her on the bed.

_Humans prefer being warm, don’t they?_

Anna had displayed several human behaviours, so Castiel looked around the house, finding some old blankets stowed away in a rotting broom’s closet. Castiel threw away the sheets in what had once been the kitchen, and then rolled Anna up in the blankets after he had checked her wounds. Her wounds had stopped bleeding, for the most part. Castiel’s wound, much to his chagrin, still bled.

 _I might as well put my blood to good use_.

Castiel ended up having to cut his arm to be able to do everything he wanted, but he had painted more sigils, this time in blood. Particularly effective against demons and ghouls. Castiel looked over to Anna.

 _She needs clothes_. Castiel frowned. _I think in the United States it’s frowned upon men going around with a bare torso most of the time_.

So Castiel’s vessel needed a new shirt, too. Procuring the needed items was easier than he had thought. Plus his scar tissue had healed enough that he cut the thread and re-bandaged himself. He was still bleeding a little, but Castiel did not need to do a perfect job in order to heal properly, so he did not care much about that. He dropped a duffel bag with suitable feminine clothing at the feet of Anna’s bed. Castiel also put the sheets full of angelic blood to good use by burning them and using the ashes and charcoal to set up more wards. Finally, Castiel looked through the little gabled window the attic had and stood watch over his older sister, as good little brothers should do.

_(Castiel did not dare to touch the part within himself that actively wanted to take care of Anna as Anael had for him, and that longed to know if Anna still wanted to take care of him)._

Then Anna woke up. His talk with her had actually been going pretty well while she dressed her vessel, until it turned out Heavenly gossip _also_ made it down to prison, and Anna knew about the search for God. Which, of course, Anna was touchy about. And the Colt.

‘You know that could’ve been Heaven, right?’

 _Highly unlikely_ , he thought as he remained silent. Castiel was reluctant to give away his secrets, though.

‘That’s flimsy, you know it. You’re hiding something’.

Castiel was. There were so many things Castiel would have liked to tell Anna to convince her, but words had never been his thing. That had been Esther’s, now dead. Anna’s indictment of Castiel was the open chasm between the two of them. Something had to give, and rebels had better stick together, so Castiel shunt off his discomfort and strode forwards. Anna was observing him intently. By the time Castiel had unfurled his second pair of wings, Anna had seemed frozen in her place. She could not help but whisper ‘amazing’ once he had extended his six wings in all their glory.

‘Impossible. It’s…’

Even the eyes in Anna’s vessel were wandering over his wings, trying to puzzle out if Castiel was pulling her leg, somehow. Her vessel’s voice rang, unbidden, almost like an afterthought:

‘Can I touch them?’

 _You did not just ask that_.

Castiel had not known that blood could leave a human’s face that fast, but he sure learnt as his vessel’s blood did just that when Anna asked that question. The words hung in the air; with Anna taking her sweet time realising their full meaning. But… while there were many, many reasons as to why Castiel would have preferred to never let Anna near his wings or his true form or Grace ever again—for the most part—these troubled times did not leave Castiel with many options.

What Castiel preferred was irrelevant.

The fact that Anna was about to back-track spurred Castiel into action. Castiel interrupted Anna mid-apology and thrust three of his wings towards Anna. He gritted his vessel’s teeth, true sight looking anywhere but at Anna, his vessel’s stare to the wall. It was a small mercy on Anna’s part that she did not comment on his tremulous wings; but it was a cruelty on her part, of sorts, that she walked so close to him and stopped her hand full of Grace just short of touching his wing. Castiel understood the intent. He wanted to yank his wing away so much, to distance it from Anna’s hand. _But I can’t. I need to convince her—I need allies. Or, at least, one less enemy_. Therein laid the crux of the matter. Castiel did not know what Anna was searching for in his vessel’s visage; nevertheless, whatever it was, she seemed to have found it, because her hand full of  warmth, of astonishment, descended. Castiel wanted his Grace to meet hers, but he would not do it, thus, the molten quasar-fire of his Grace stayed, just barely restrained, under his seraph skin—only its heat being apparent through it.

The head of the body Anna wore turned to give its full attention to Castiel’s wings, its hand leaving a laggard trail over Castiel’s wingjoint. The fingers of Anna’s vessel danced among his feathers, touching them ever-so-slightly. Castiel, once again, was made aware of how painfully _lesser_ he was becoming because, for some reason,  that was doing something to his vessel’s breathing he could not quite control.

Anna ruffled the feathers of the second wing. She then separated with care one of his star-dusted secondaries from the others, one that had the colour of blood splattered on marble, in order to examine it carefully. The palm of Anna’s vessel almost did not touch it, but—but she… she _dared_ to run a thumb **slowly** all over the rachis as if they were still—! Against Castiel’s will, his vessel awakened its muscle memory and threw its head back, its mouth parting. Threads of Grace surveyed the realness of Castiel’s wing, skirting dangerously close to his skin, while her hand rubbed the top part and left dishevelled the silver-enframed feathers of cool colours Anael had always liked best.

Then Anna turned her whole vessel; she stood in front of his wings, her arms shaky. Castiel side-glanced Anna. She had raised her vessel’s two hands.

 _If that’s what it takes_.

Castiel closed his vessel’s eyes. The hands touched his upper wing. While it was slightly shakier than his other two wings had been, Castiel still held the wing in position for Anna. Her Grace extended all over the appendage, while Anna’s hands fondled his feathers, starting at the midpoint of the secondaries closest to his vessel, and ascended carefully, slowly, until the tremor in her hands caused something in her control to slip in such a way Anna ended up burying the hands in Castiel’s wings, where the cool human skin, bathed in Anna’s warm and dry Grace, came in contact with the scorching-hot presence of his Grace, his angelic skin… It was as if an electric current had gone through Castiel’s vessel, but Castiel still would not take his wing away if what it took to get one burden out of his shoulders was something as simple as letting Anna fondle him to her heart’s content.

Yet, to Castiel’s surprise, Anna tore her hands away as if she had been burnt by his heat. It was something for which Castiel was thankful for, albeit not something he had expected given Anna’s behaviour so far.

‘I’m sorry. That was inappropr—’

‘It’s fine’.

 _It was very inappropriate. But I allowed it_.

Castiel was starting to get an inkling that the Apocalypse was seriously warping his morals.

‘I take it you’re convinced’, Castiel stated.

‘Yes’, she replied, all frankness reflected in the wide-open eyes of her vessel.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Castiel’s stubornness finally broke down under her insistence, thus, he ended up sipping the chocolate milk, to Anna‘s beaming delight. His vessel’s face grimaced, and set it down.

‘You don’t like chocolate?’

Anna sounded aghast, which just baffled Castiel.

‘I didn’t like most things’.

_What’s the big deal?_

‘But it’s chocolate! It’s awesome!’

‘Honestly, An—’

His mobile started to blip. Anna stared at Castiel.

‘You have a cellphone’.

‘I do’, Castiel confirmed, raising an eyebrow to reflect the confusion he felt as to why this always seemed such a difficult concept to grasp for everyone else. It was an efficient means of communication. ‘It’s probably Dean’. Anna’s focus zeroed in on his overcoat’s pocket, despite her vessel still staring at him. ‘He took his time. I expected this call earlier’.

He eyed Anna, Anna nodded back. It was both to remind Anna of their agreement that she would handle Hell for the Winchesters and the fact that Anna was obviously eager to see Dean.

 **I want to listen** , she prayed to him with her lovely voice as Castiel flipped open his phone. She must have noticed the wards Castiel had put on it as well, so Castiel’s Grace flared, unlocking some wards. Honestly, in a war one could never take enough precautions.

‘Okay’, Dean sounded stresssed, had something happened to him?; ‘Cas, we really need to talk—’

 _Ah, I see_.

So Dean wanted to go into some inane tangent. Castiel decided to cut it short.

‘— about—’

‘Where are you?’

‘What?’ Dean sounded extremely annoyed. ‘No, you’re a dick, you know that?’

Anna looked at Castiel in confusion when she felt Castiel’s amusement at the obvious insult. _Oh, sister. If you knew all the ways Dean called our family_. This, however, was still a  waste of time, since he had allowed himself to dither with Anna against his better judgement.

‘How could you—’

‘Where are you?’, Castiel commanded.

This took Dean aback, so he just gave them their address. Castiel nodded at Anna who, as a reply, extended her wings and flew off.

‘Anna will be helping you out as well’.

With a sigh, Castiel closed the phone. He knew he had better get back to Guatemala and keep surveying the ruins for anything of use, but Anna had made him take a detour, and he never got to enjoy much quiet moments like this anymore. Time went by as it had always done, first one minute, then four. The sky was grey and snow was everywhere, yet the park looked lovely with the contrast of black, leafless tress, against the melting white snow. There were frost and clear puddles everywhere; his senses picked up the static of an approaching storm—would it snow or hail?

‘It’s not like you to be caught off guard, Castiel’, drawled a voice to his side.

It was literally a bucket of icy water on his being.

 _Stupid!_ , he berated himself. _We both were too distracted_.

Castiel very deliberately turned his vessel’s head towards Lucifer, with a bland smile on it.

‘Who says I was?’

_Anna’s human family was killed by demons. I should’ve thought they might still be holding the town!_

Castiel’s vessel was like a stone, his Grace was so tightly wound up inside so that Lucifer could never divine the presence of his terror. His Grace was so closed off that his vessel was actually starting to feel cold, even shivering.

‘It’s impossible to miss you, Lucifer’.

 _Apparently, I just have_.

Lucifer’s vessel stood with just a shirt and pants and no wings outside of it in the middle of the winter day. Lucifer also had, once again, clasped his vessel’s hands against his back, in a deliberately non-threatening gesture. The archangel looked at Castiel’s shivering with an unreadable look on its face.

‘Who was the other angel?’

‘Other?’

Castiel was not a fool. Lucifer’s demons had probably told him everything he needed to know by now. He just wanted to determine how much Lucifer had seen of their conversation.

‘Red-headed vessel, drab wings. She looked at your contraption with surprise’.

 _So you’ve been here for a while now_.

And Castiel had not noticed him. His only comfort was that, since it was highly unlikely that both Anna and Castiel had been so distracted as to not notice Lucifer’s resplendent wings arriving close to them, Lucifer had been hidden away from them, far away enough that Lucifer could not have caught their conversation—and the Winchester’s location.

‘Anael’.

‘Little brother, it seems Anael is a hazard to your health. I’ve been watching from over _there_ ’, his older brother retorted, with a gleam in his true sight as he pointed to a far-off bench in a dark corner.

Castiel felt like groaning in his true voice.

 _He always knew I was completely distracted. No, wait a minute_ …

‘It’s so unlike you not to take the opportunity to get rid of a couple of thorns on your side’.

‘But you two were being so endearing’, Lucifer explained as his vessel smiled.

 _Cut the crap_ , Castiel thought. Castiel’s Grace spiked in triumph, even amidst his sea of unhappiness at Lucifer’s presence. Lucifer was a military genius who had managed to drive Heaven to desperation with just demons and a handful of angels; he would not have passed the opportunity to smite Castiel, who stood between the Devil and Sam Winchester, and he would not have hesitated to smite some other angel who was clearly another rebel. Castiel may have been careless, but Lucifer definitely had not been here for long, unlike what he implied. _You haven’t even had time to prepare a trap_. The town was still tranquil; Castiel was well-assured he would have noticed whatever ruckus demons would have cooked up to make blood boundaries and the sort. Modern humans took offense to people graffitting walls in blood on broad daylight. Not to mention that Castiel had extended his field of perception since Lucifer had revealed himself. No demons nearby at all.

‘I’m glad we entertain you’.

The shivering of Castiel’s vessel intensified; Lucifer was letting out his interest in the air, the freezing taste of his Grace lingered in the air.

‘You really aren’t afraid, aren’t you?’

He sounded amazed by that notion.

‘No’.

 _You terrify me, Lucifer. I don’t understand why you insist on making my life so miserable_.

But Lucifer could believe whatever suited him. Castiel was not going to disabuse him of his misconceptions. And he **refused** to let his Grace out to illuminate Lucifer on the matter.

‘Such an arrogant, pretty angel’.

Lucifer’s vessel made a face of disgust when Castiel had to avert his own blushing vessel’s face, an extremely human gesture, so that Castiel’s vessel now stared at his lap. Lucifer was the Devil, his enemy, a monster, and a host of other things, but the archangel was still The Morningstar, their Father’s greatest beauty… Castiel normally did not care for compliments about his physical attributes. Although, when they came from Lucifer, always so alone and bright at the top? Then they truly meant something. It was _extremely_ flattering.

‘I thought we had established you were the arrogant one, Lucifer’.

That made Lucifer pause.

‘Yes, I suppose I shouldn’t have underestimated you’. Lucifer’s interest intensified, if that was possible. ‘I’m still trying to figure out how you banished us. You were immobile’.

‘That would be telling’.

Lucifer walked slowly, a perfect arch should Castiel be the center of the circular trajectory the archangel walked, until Lucifer was in front of Castiel; all the while Castiel followed Lucifer’s every step with his vessel’s eyes. Unlike Castiel, who was shivering and uncomfortable, Lucifer and his cold-burning Grace were right at home. The archangel’s wings carried the colours of winter, which today seemed to shine more than all the others in his silken wingspan, the stars that were made from warm colours out of all the ones that tipped his wings seemed even more alight. Strangely, even with Lucifer’s vessel being more worn out each time Castiel saw it, with the blisters on its arms and the peeling skin of its face, the vessel Lucifer wore had never looked haler than standing before Castiel, in the cold, in the snow; in Lucifer’s very own season. There even seemed to be colour in its palms, palms that were slightly tan and rugged from a life of hard work.

‘Your thought process really is something, Castiel’.

Castiel shrugged. Castiel’s vessel, in contrast, had purpled lips and pale cheeks, its already thin complexion shook from the cold. The skin from James Novak’s hands and face was feeling slightly raw due to the winter breeze, and Castiel was pretty sure his vessel had cold burns from where the damp clothes made contact with its skin—nothing he would not be able to heal in due time. On top of all of this, the skin of Castiel’s vessel had really started to itch, but Castiel could not afford to spare attention away from Lucifer to see what human infirmity was striking his vessel this time.

‘I didn’t think seraphim shiver’, noted Lucifer idly.

‘Not everyone is an archangel’.

A misdirection; Castiel still was not so powerless that he should be shivering around. But he preferred to suffer the weather, and blotched fingers from the cold, rather than give Lucifer any ammunition against him by revealing his emotions to the archangel. His vessel would heal, eventually, even as uncomfortable as the buzz on its skin felt.

‘You’re wasted on the humans’.

‘I beg to differ’.

Castiel thought back to what he had contributed to the start of the Apocalypse. Re-educated or not, it hardly was an excuse to have let Sam out of his confinement. In a sense, he was even guiltier than Sam of having fucked up the world. The Winchesters could never, ever know of his betrayal. Sam could probably forgive him, having had experience with being manipulated, but Dean… That was another line of thought Castiel did not want to continue. The Apocalypse was seriously turning Castiel’s mind into a labyrinth, with more seemingly closed venues for thought than open ones.

‘My offer still stands’.

 _Please don’t offer me again_ , Castiel thought. He, however, maintained an expression of cautious interest in his vessel.

Lucifer’s wings burst out from his vessel’s back. The day may have been cold, yet it was as lit up around Lucifer as a summer afternoon.

‘I would like—’

‘Well, _I’d_ like it very much if the Apocalypse stopped overnight, but we can’t always get what we want, can we, older brother?’

‘Especially if what we want are stupid delusions’, Lucifer replied, blandly.

Castiel raised his vessel’s eyebrows at Lucifer, and laughed, merriment burning a little through his misery.

‘Exactly’.

‘So that’s how you feel, Castiel? Very well; I suppose for you, of all my brethren, I can leave my pain aside when I finally kill you’.

 _About time_.

Castiel collected the garbage and uneaten foodstuff Anael had left behind inside the plastic bag, and rose in one fluid motion, wings flared. If Lucifer thought he could just manipulate Castiel around until he broke then Lucifer had another thing coming. Castiel walked calmly, completely dissonant with the turmoil inside of him, until he was close to Lucifer’s vessel. His predatory presence seemed to intensify, Castiel ripe for the taking if the rebel angel slipped up. He was especially fixated on Castiel’s wings and, while it made Castiel waver his wings slightly because Castiel felt defenseless and weak, Castiel still spread them more in open defiance. Lucifer could go and demand kow-towing of some other angel.

‘The thing is, Lucifer…’, Castiel breathed, an arm’s length away from Lucifer.

Just as Lucifer made his vessel step forward Castiel flew back, tossing the bag he held in a bin along the way. It still was not his full speed, not like his match with Ithuriel, but considerably faster than Lucifer could fly. From the air, Castiel bore down on Lucifer’s vessel and Lucifer’s _perfect_ wings.

IF ONLY YOU COULD CATCH ME.

Castiel wanted to bolt out of there. Castiel could do it, and leave Lucifer in the dust. Castiel, however, forced himself not to; flying at an easy pace away from Lucifer instead. Castiel’s emotions were his own and Lucifer could go think of Castiel whatever he wanted. Lucifer, if anything, had felt overly entertained with Castiel’s jibe, and did not even bother to follow him.

**Is that a challenge, little one?**

Castiel’s Grace could not help but rejoice—as any angel’s would do—as Lucifer’s voice vibrated within it. Such a stately, grand being his elder brother was; pity Lucifer was as vile inside as unmeasurably good-looking.

 **Call it what you like**.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Castiel touched ground in a particularly empty strech of the Thar desert. Some shifting dunes and a couple trees were in view. Farther from where he was there was a lot more shrubbery. Castiel was not fool enough to believe it was a healthy choice to land in the same continent Lucifer was after taunting the hell out of him.

Unfortunately, even as tired as he was, his Grace felt painful, it throbbed—he was being called. He’d have no rest. So, once more Castiel spread his wings and flew, following the call. It was at the boundary between Spain and Portugal, several leagues down river from a small dock in Arribes del Duero, way up from the great meander of the imposing Iberian river. Castiel surveyed the area a couple of times before landing in the winter night, wings nested within his vessel.

‘You’re late, Duria’.

The sheer slopes of white rock did not make much of a shore. The border between the mountain and the river was dotted with numberless boulders, and bare trees and green shrubbery. On one boulder, dark-haired Duria was perched, hunched over the summoning circle, watching the remains of Castiel’s feather wither away in wisps of light-blue light. His legs were half into the water and, shirtless as Duria was, his black iron accoutrements stood out from his pale skin. The winter night was unusually cloudless for the region, so the stars were reflected along the tranquil waters of Duria’s main body.

‘Ataegina’, Duria said as he turned his head to point her out to Castiel, ‘had some trouble returning to me’.

The goddess in question rested against a mountain slope, under a tree. Ataegina was fair-skinned and had a pleasant round face with green eyes set in it. She was still pale and looked like a good night’s rest might be of some good—who knew what the demons had been doing to her back in Wales? Even so, her aura was relaxed, her eyes the same colour as the lush moss that surrounded her. Ataegina’s bearskin cloak and her long hair were as dark as the night, yet her whole figure was stark against the gloom, impossible to miss—the spring-and-night goddess was still strong, she was mending.

‘While I do appreciate the rescue, my dashing knight, I could have done with a lift’.

‘I was otherwise occupied. I trust you didn’t have too much trouble?’

‘I think I caused a minor terrorist panic, all in all’.

Castiel tilted his head, bemused. Duria just sighed in such away that told Castiel this was not the first time Ataegina pulled something like that.

‘You didn’t tell me this when you arrived’.

‘You don’t like it when the humans are unsettled’.

‘These days it’s just trouble’. Castiel found himself agreeing with that statement. The last thing he needed were humans poking into his person when he had enough in his plate with demons and angels as things were. ‘What happened?’

‘I wasn’t as careful as I should have been when I got myself on the plane. I slipped back into plain view because I was distracted, so now Heathrow and Barajas have been for a while now trying to figure out how a woman dressed in just a raincoat by-passed airport security’.

‘Interesting’, said Castiel, in a tone of voice that conveyed how very much not interested he was in their chatter. He was not at his best, his vessel was damaged and itchy and these two gods were dawdling.

‘One would think _you_ , of all beings, would know about patience’.

‘You make a lot of wrong assumptions about me’.

Duria bared his teeth.

‘That I do. Very well’, Duria gestured for Castiel to come nearer Ataegina and him, ‘listen. _Carlos_ travelled all around the world, but always came back to Oporto. He seemed to like the city. Or, who knows, maybe he even liked talking to me. But in 1652, as humans count such things, he decided it was time he headed for the West Indies. Age of Discovery and all that. So he got passage on a great ship to Mauriciopolis, and that was the last time I saw him’.

‘Mauriciopolis, are you sure?’, stressed Castiel.

‘I wouldn’t know where that is, I’m sorry. I suppose that makes a poor compensation for your troubles’.

‘You’ve been helpful enough’.

‘You know of it?’, interrupted their exchange Ataegina.

‘Of course’, asserted the angel. ‘It’s Recife’.

‘That’s Brazil, isn’t it?’

‘I think so’, concurred Duria with Ataegina.

Perhaps he really should go back to Itzamná’s temple in Petén after he surveyed Recife? It was the same continent, after all.

‘Thank you very much for your help’.

‘My pleasure. It’s not every day someone as old as you asks me for assistance’.

 _Duria, if you’ve really talked with Father, you really have_ ** _no_** _idea_.

‘Him? Old?’, piped up the goddess.

Castiel smiled. Ataegina was middle-aged, as gods went, but even older gods were not clear on how fleeting they truly were. And the gulf between old gods and the truly ancient such as The Sea was so vast the old gods did not really grasp it.

‘He looks young to me’.

Three heads instantly moved as one to gawk uphill. Duria looked alarmed when Castiel’s blade slid firmly into his vessel’s hand.

‘What are you doing here?’, the rebel demanded.

‘Can’t I drop by for a friendly chat?’

Castiel ignored Lucifer.

‘Duria, Ataegina, you should go’.

‘What’s going on?’, asked the goddess.

‘Ataegina, don’t argue’, pled Duria, as he immersed himself in the water. ‘Come!’

YES, hissed Lucifer as he extended his wings and jumped to a point a few yards off Castiel. SCRAM.

Ataegina flung herself into the water. A pair of hands emerged, dragging her to the depths—Duria was, probably, pulling her along to emerge on a safer shore.

 _There are no demons_.

Castiel backed away, never taking his sight away from Lucifer.

_How? There are no demons around!_

YOU’RE GROWING SLOPPY.

ABOUT TIME YOU IMPROVED YOUR WARDS.

Unadvisable, but Castiel felt pretty satisfied when Lucifer’s Grace stank slightly of irritation, while he tried to calm himself down. Castiel would not have thought to label it like that, but he was rapidly ‘hyperventilating’. His vessel was shaking as it walked backwards, and it was not from the cold.

HOW DID YOU FIND ME?

Lucifer tasted of cold smugness, even waving his wings a little in self-satisfaction.

NOW, THAT WOULD BE TELLING. BUT YOU CHALLENGED ME.

Castiel shut his vessel’s eyes tightly when he heard his own words back.

WHATEVER MADE YOU THINK YOU COULD BEST ME?, singsong-ed Lucifer, taunting Castiel. The Morningstar seldom took to music or rhythm, but it was sublime anytime he deigned to.

 _I get it, you’re proving a point_.

Castiel tripped and fell against a rock. Lucifer felt his troubled mood when Castiel’s Grace cloyed the air. It was too much. Facing Lucifer so soon after their last encounter was too much… Castiel could only hid away his terror, but everything else—his marvelling at Lucifer’s true voice, his tribulations, his _want_ to crawl away from The Morningstar—was all out there in the open.

THERE’S NO NEED TO BE AFRAID, CASTIEL.

I’M NOT AFRAID, Castiel retorted.

Lucifer stopped in his tracks, mulling this statement, the taste of Castiel’s Grace in the air.

WELL, I’LL BE. IT’S TRUE. HOW VERY INTERESTING. Lucifer’s vessel sat down on an nearby rock, in a relaxed pose. His vessel’s gaze looked at the starry sky, but his true sight was on Castiel, as if trying to figure him out. YOU SHOULDN’T HIDE YOUR FEELINGS SO MUCH FROM ME. IT ALMOST FEELS LIKE LIES.

Castiel had no desire to be obliterated from existence again. A second chance was already one chance too many compared to what all the other angels got usually. But he still mustered enough foolishness to look at Lucifer nonchalantly and retort as he raised himself from the ground.

AS OPPOSED TO THE LIES YOU SPOUT?

Lucifer seemed to be irritated at that.

I DON’T LIE, LITTLE BROTHER.

But Castiel could only think of their two encounters in Egypt, and found his Grace spiking so rash and hot, he actually melted a little the rock he was leaning on.

YES. YES, YOU DO.

It seemed to render Lucifer speechless, so Castiel took the chance and flew to to a lonely atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The islet was lush, and the daylight bore on him. The afternoon felt nice with the sea wind flapping his vessel’s overcoat. Castiel was surrounded by coconut palms all around him, the leaves a vibrant green that swayed gently with the wind. Beyond the palms, the water looked acquamarine, shimmering a rainbow of colours amidst the sea foam and gentle sea spray. On the horizon, more islands could be seen, the biggest one was inhabited—this, Castiel knew.

Castiel looked at his vessel’s hands. They were no longer near-hypothermic; they were once again rosy. Castiel also knew the flakey skin of his vessel’s face had healed off. _I need to control my temper_. While it felt nice that his Grace had healed him so well, it was still an unnecessary waste of Grace. And, come to think of it, if Castiel had healed himself so well, why did he still feel the urge to scratch his vessel’s skin off? Angels did not have illnesses. Castiel strained his true sight on his vessel, he broke down the wards at the same time so he could have a good look at it. There was magic, sticky and nasty, that clung to his vessel’s skin. It felt even more uncomfortable.

Castiel prodded the magic with a tendril of his Grace. It felt constricting, like a fishing net around a fish… Castiel tried to burn it off, but it was not an impure thing, thus, all his Grace managed to do to the spell was to make the magic shine brighter and make it more apparent to his true eyes. On the upside, a very _bad_ upside, it allowed Castiel to feel the general nature of the spell.

 _It’s a tracking spell_.

Lucifer had put on him a tracking spell.

 _When!_ , Castiel thought. As Castiel’s desolation grew, the grass around him started to wither. _When!_ His vessel’s hands balled in fists and Castiel looked through the sky, reviewing his last encounters with Lucifer. _In Kentucky. I underestimated him—an archangel!_ , Castiel realised with dismay. _Lucifer had his hands behind his back, he must’ve had a hex bag of some sort_ … And it had to have been a hex bag, for Castiel had not felt any incantation around him.

 _But I should have felt the spell long before now_.

And Castiel, at the same time he finished that thought, realised that he had; it was the itch he had felt on his skin, what was supposed to be a ping in his angelic senses… So Castiel caught on to yet another thing.

 _Lucifer is counting on the fact I have dull senses_.

It was poor solace to figure out as well that Lucifer thought Castiel was much weaker than he really was, since that did not make his more supernatural senses less befogged. And, also, a seraph was not much use against an archangel, so what did it matter how strong Lucifer thought he was? The only measure that mattered was that Castiel was vastly inferior to the archangel. He needed to get rid of the spell, however, he was unable to glean anything else from the spell with his subpar senses in order to try to break it.

 _If Lucifer gives me enough time to break it_ , rued Castiel his circumstances. _I really have to stay from Sam and Dean now_.

He would not even be able to see them. That hurt.

His vessel fell to its knees, huffing and puffing, body so incandescent hot the coral-sand grew amber under it. The heat did not bother Castiel. The lament of his grief shook the palm trees. Howbeit there was still so much to do, Castiel was already a dead angel flying. Castiel gritted his vessel’s teeth and stood up. He put up his wards again—interestingly, now that he was paying attention, the spell appeared dampened to his senses after restoring the extensive warding. He needed to find out whatever the _fuck_ Lucifer had hexed him with, go to Brazil, avoid getting himself killed, help Sam and Dean stop the Apocalypse before either of them cracked and said yes.

 _Fine. I’ll do it_.

Castiel spread his wings, dreading—no, not dreading; actively **loathing** the day his wings would disappear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can read the annotated version of this chapter [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12188821/8/The-Devil-Falls%0A).


	9. Reluctant Dialogues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel makes Lucifer’s life a lot more interesting, Lucifer realises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings : Lucifer being Lucifer, mentions of anthropophagy, disturbing imagery, gore**.

_The problem with the Apocalypse_ , Lucifer decided, _is that it’s boring_.

While Lucifer understood the value of patience, and was willing to wait however long he must in order for Sam Winchester to break and offer himself up to him, it did not change the fact that a lot of what Lucifer did was delegate, put down rogue angelic squads of little siblings—to his **great** displeasure— who had gotten haughty ideas that they could actually go against Lucifer directly, and wait. Waiting was what he did the most. Lucifer could have gone on a rampage slaughtering humans, but humans were so laughably weak that he would run out of targets sooner rather than later, and he was of the opinion that watching the apes languish and suffer was a lot more entertaining. It was not something that hindered his plans, either, plus the temporary and teeming presence of pests made for excellent places for his troops to go undercover and execute plans that were that much harder for Heaven to pinpoint and figure out.

Lucifer stood atop a restored building in Vienna, hidden from human sight, utterly indifferent to the snow and the humans milling about in the street. He had been perching there for some days now.

It was just easier to communicate with his pawns from a populated area, where there were enough _human_ resources to maintain steady communication between demons and with Lucifer. It was night; the obnoxious lamps along the streets would have hidden from Lucifer’s sight the superb night cloudscapes of the moon, were it not for Lucifer’s superior senses. Clouds pregnant with snow were sowing languidly their cargo, the flakes still so small they melted before reaching the ground. This, of course, would change as the snowfall kept going; nevertheless, for now, the cold rain made puddles in the streets that would freeze over.

There was a tingling on his Grace, gradually intensifying.

Certain little angel was standing still, long enough for his spell to work. Lucifer debated for a while whether to see Castiel or not. Lucifer seemed to have the Apocalypse well in hand, and he did not have much else to do currently. Lucifer was still trying to devise a way to get into his would-be-vessel’s thoughts. A direct line to Sam Winchester’s head could prove invaluable. When his vessel had still been full of demon blood it had been easier, but now…

The hardest thing with Castiel was always how to sneak up on him. Lucifer flew to Santiago de Cuba, surveying the area at a distance the archangel knew he would not be detected. Castiel was standing on a stone, in a plane unseen, down a cliff from some old Spaniard fort that had been conserved whole by the local humans. It was a smart choice on Castiel’s part, really: the old fort was not warded, thus it would not get in the way of Castiel’s true sight, Lucifer’s vessel could not stand on water, and he could not smite something as great as an angel from afar.

The coat of Castiel’s vessel flapped wildly in the wind, his wings were fanned in alertness and made the seaspray from the tempestuous seas glow before it dispersed in the air. His vessel’s face looked as stoic as ever. The gales carried the scent of a storm in it.

As an experiment, Lucifer tried to land right by Castiel’s side, but Castiel’s swiftness took him a little further up the cliff, amidst green trees that covered its sides. Castiel stood in exactly the same position he had been moments earlier.

‘Hello, Lucifer’.

Castiel’s vessel closed its eyes, it seemed to shiver. It bothered Lucifer that he could not surmise whether the shiver was from the cold, or from some other emotion in Castiel that Lucifer could not determine yet. The only thing Lucifer knew for sure is that a satisfying, sweet, overwhelming hankering to get away radiated from Castiel in waves, even if the rebel angel still was unmovable and appeared fearless.

HELLO, CASTIEL. Castiel’s true sight inspected him. IT SURPRISES ME THAT YOU’RE HERE WAITING PATIENTLY FOR YOUR DEATH.

I NEEDED TO THINK, Castiel admitted to Lucifer. Angels did not get physically tired, but mental exhaustion poured from Castiel’s Grace, to an extent that Castiel was not able to mask it. Was Castiel trying to mask it at all? FLEEING DOESN’T LEND ITSELF VERY WELL TO IT.

IT’S BETTER THAN BEING A SITTING DUCK, Lucifer pointed out reasonably because, really, the more frantic Castiel was about everything that happened to him, the more his morale decreased, and the sooner Lucifer could swindle Castiel into something. Lucifer did not get the reaction he expected; some undercurrent of negativity, perhaps sadness. No, what he got was a sliver of satisfaction amidst the screams of Castiel’s Grace to flee away from him.

BECAUSE HERE, Castiel spoke as if it was Castiel who was **deigning** to speak to Lucifer,  YOU CAN’T CATCH ME.

Lucifer quickly analysed the situation. Castiel, the little bastard, was correct. Santiago was not a demonic bastion; any demons in Cuba were up north in Havana, as could be expected. There were no traps of obvious occult nature either, especially not so close to the sea, least of all something that could affect an angel. Castiel’s feistiness rattled Lucifer.

I SUGGEST YOU TREAD CAREFULLY.

FINE, Castiel obliged far too easily. LET ME ASK: HAVE YOU COME TO END ME?

I DON’T KNOW, mused Lucifer out loud.

Once again, Lucifer did not get the reaction he had been aiming for—surprise, to startle and capture Castiel. Lucifer, instead, got a very human snort and another infuriating accusation.

LIES.

( _Castiel’s Grace rose up in righteous indignation, overwhelming Castiel’s self-preservation instinct that was practically screaming at Lucifer that the young angel wanted to get as far away from Lucifer as possible, as Castiel retorted to Lucifer, angrily:_

_A S OPPOSED TO THE LIES YOU SPOUT?_

_Lucifer had to grip his Grace in a way he had not had to since the start of his rebellion, thousands of years ago, in order to hide how irated he became at that statement. Of all his brethren, Lucifer had taken pride in that he had never needed a lie to cajole someone into doing what he wanted. The very idea that Lucifer would deviate from his code to lie to Castiel was absurd; as if Castiel was really so important in the grand scheme of things for Lucifer to make an exception!_

_I DON’T LIE, LITTLE BROTHER._

_Lucifer started to doubt his estimation of Castiel’s power. Castiel’s indignation had the young angel so enraged his Grace burnt like a star, the air around Lucifer and Castiel thick, cloying. The cold night air seemed to warm up until it was fresh and fragrant—all were effects that Castiel’s Grace caused when it transformed the air around them. The boulder could not help but be clay in the seraph’s fire, melting everywhere Castiel’s vessel so much brushed it, for a moment shining even brighter than molten metal._

_Y ES, the disdain clattered into the night, unseemly against Castiel’s pleasant voice; almost like some sort of rock avalanche about to hit Lucifer. YES, asserted his brother with vehemence, YOU DO._

_The turbulent emotions in Castiel’s Grace, backed by his vessel’s thunderous visage, could not lie. It was a barrage of negative emotions, odd thing that they were carried by such a sweet Grace. Regardless, Castiel had outraged Lucifer, distempered him for an instant; an instant longer than what Castiel had needed to escape._

_Castiel truly believed Lucifer was a liar_ ).

I’M NOT A LIAR, thundered Lucifer, making the ground quake.

DENIALIST, THEN, offered Castiel in a tone that could be best described as diplomatic, even if the words were nothing respectful. Just as Lucifer had been about to retort, Castiel continued, quoting Lucifer: AND I SAID I DIDN’T WANT TO HURT YOU, AND I DON’T.

Lucifer considered Castiel’s words for a fleeting instant. The roaring of the sea filled the silence.

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o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Lucifer, without bothering to hide his wings, stepped into the house where the archangel knew Castiel was busy throwing his plans in disarray. Lucifer could feel the magic inherent in the Enochian sigils painted inside the house. They had been painted with demon blood. Much to Lucifer’s distaste, he had a connection to it, given that all demons had stemmed from his acts, ultimately. But there were times the connection came in useful, such as this: Lucifer did not even had to touch any of the linked sigils in order to exert his power through them.

Castiel’s vessel faced the ground, and bellied away slowly until Lucifer put a stop to that, too. The only thing the vessel could move, pressed against the ground as Castiel’s Grace was, was its fingers. And the arms, perhaps a little bit. Castiel’s wings just looked pitiful trying to move away.

‘Your determination is impressive’, Lucifer conceded, ‘but foolish, Castiel’.

 _Admirable, really. Hopeless_.

Castiel may have been too warded for Lucifer to be able to determine Castiel’s strength, but a seraph should have been able to at least struggle a lot more against the sigils. So very human already, with Castiel’s vessel gasping from the effort. _Disgusting_. Castiel’s wings eventually tired and just laid there, their full wingspan in display. An impressive sight; they were  huge, especially for the size Castiel’s vessel was. What a sad thing it was that the wings were doomed to disappear.

Lucifer would spare Castiel that sorrow.

Lucifer walked around Castiel’s wings as he walked up to Castiel’s vessel, conscious that Castiel’s true sight was following him. At the same time, Lucifer examined the wings on the ground attentively. The head of Castiel’s vessel was just besides the feet of Lucifer’s vessel. Lucifer tucked his wings very closely to his vessel’s back when it crouched.

Lucifer focused on the weirdly impassive Castiel, as if Castiel was giving a lesson on stoicism.

‘Why keep your emotions so hidden?’, Lucifer inquired.

Castiel closed his vessel’s eyes. Humanity was taking over Castiel. A hand extended from his vessel and hovered above Castiel’s vessel head for an instant, then lowered. Lucifer’s Grace showed no outwards sign of it, probably being as wintery as ever… But for an intense moment Lucifer had been stirred; he had wanted to bury his vessel’s hand in Castiel’s wings—usually a spread like that was inviting, plus the enchanting appendages belonged to sharp Castiel. Lucifer knew this caress on the head was a human gesture of comfort. Off-putting as he found it, the archangel figured he could indulge Castiel in this. Castiel, over the ages, could have done more. **Lucifer** could have done more with Castiel at his side. It saddened him to kill Castiel.

‘What do you care for my emotions?’

On any other occasion Castiel’s defiance would have amused him, but this was just pathetic.

‘I don’t. I care more for your thoughts’. Because the inside of Castiel’s mind was surely dazzling, but Castiel’s emotions were probably full of such useless notions such as ‘wanting to keep on living despite impending humanity’. ‘Must be really something to choose humans over Heaven’. The height of madness, in fact. When Lucifer dragged his vessel’s palm against the other’s cheek, the eyes of Castiel’s vessel opened up, its blue gaze focusing on the door Castiel had tried to inch towards. ‘However, you’re starting to annoy me’. An angel willing to soil themself with humanity! Heavenly education was evidently not working as intended when it came to the young ones. His vessel’s hand rested against the neck on the floor, where the hand’s trail had ended. ‘Some human trait you must have picked up. I think it’s time’.

Lucifer had tried to make his point clear to Castiel, making the neck of Castiel’s vessel bleed. Castiel still seemed to need clarification.

‘Time for what?’

‘Time I killed you. I’d be doing you a mercy. You’re becoming more human, little one’.

That was all the explanation Lucifer was willing to give Castiel. He was about to crack his fingers, when Castiel’s Grace, almost _gleeful_ , bubbled from beneath him. Castiel had called him by his name, diverting Lucifer’s whole attention to him.

‘Anything you’re feeling happy about, Castiel?’, Lucifer commented as nonchalant as he was able.

 _Because this is just odd behaviour in the face of death_.

Castiel’s mind was truly something.

The series of events that followed made no sense for the longest time before Lucifer managed to figure them out.

‘And you call me arrogant’.

Castiel was such a spiteful little brother, Lucifer had mused, a thought which was **immediately** ammended into _devious_ little brother. Lucifer’s Grace was wringed around; before Lucifer knew it, his vessel was smashed sideways into an Antarctic mountain. The ice all over the mountain face cracked ominously, and an avalanche fell. Lucifer looked at the mass of snow and ice with boredom, waved his vessel’s hand. The avalanche just wove around his vessel.

 _Castiel banished me_ , Lucifer thought in amazement. _How_?

He flew to the top of the mountain and admired the brume over the white landscape, very much like he admired and picked apart Castiel’s audacity in his mind.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Honestly, little siblings could be such a chore.

AH, BUT I _HAVEN ’T_.

I HARDLY CONSIDER YOUR ACTIONS AS SOMETHING THAT DOES NO HARM TO ME.

I’D BE DOING YOU A MERCY, Lucifer quoted himself back to Castiel. YOU’RE BECOMING MORE HUMAN, LITTLE ONE.

YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT.

I’D HATE TO SEE YOU DIMINISHED TO SOMETHING LESS MAGNIFICENT THAN YOU ARE. Castiel’s vessel flushed. Lucifer was disgusted. WHAT DID YOU THINK I MEANT?

THAT YOU WERE JUST EXERTING YOUR COMMON SENSE.

Oddly enough, Castiel did not seem all mad at the prospect of being killed by Lucifer. What went unsaid, as well, was that Castiel was using his common sense, and was actively looking for a way to kill Lucifer. _Good luck with that_. It meant that Castiel was not too mad about Wales. Disturbed, maybe, even if Lucifer did not see why should Castiel be so disturbed since it was an occasion where he had managed to utterly befuddle Lucifer.

IF THAT’S NOT WHAT HAS YOU SO SAD, THEN WHAT IS IT?

Castiel levelled Lucifer a flat look at his older brother’s mockery.

CANOPUS’ RUINS, BROTHER.

 _When Tiamat was summoned_ , Lucifer realised.

I DON’T WANT TO DIE, BUT THAT’S A CONSEQUENCE OF WAR, manifested Castiel at Lucifer’s extended silence, BUT I’D HAVE THOUGHT THAT YOU VALUED YOUR WORD MORE HIGHLY.

Lucifer did. There was a reason Hell could be trusted with deals—that was all Lucifer’s mandate. Lucifer’s rage at the time of their encounter at Peguat had been unmistakeable. He had clearly been out for Castiel’s demise in the most painful way possible. Lucifer could see where Castiel’s confusion stemmed from, since he had acted in a whole different way from the Welsh incident.

Still, Lucifer bristled.

YOU MEAN, WHEN I DECIDED YOU NEEDED A LESSON ON CONCEIT? YOU GET FIXATED IN THE MOST USELESS OF THINGS.

Castiel’s vessel gritted its teeth, obviously thinking.

I HAVE TO BELIEVE YOU LIE. OTHERWISE, IT MEANS THE MORNINGSTAR IS _MORTALLY_ FICKLE.

Lucifer was pretty sure Castiel had set him up for that comeback. Castiel, in addition to being equal parts annoyance and opportunity, seemed to be a sassy little shit.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Peninnah was an striking sight; her lovely wings stood out against the greater backdrop of the white-capped Borohoro mountains, even if she was a disappointment to Lucifer, all-in-all. His sister had not been paying enough attention to her surroundings during the fray, thus, as more of the angels had been felled either by Lucifer or by demons, she had wandered unaware straight into some Enochian sigils that Peninnah had discovered, too late, hindered her movements. After she was entrapped, Lucifer had connected his Grace to the sigils, looking at the piteous spectacle.

There was the erel, fighting hard not to succumb against the snow, on the same set-up Castiel had been entrapped in not too long ago. The ends of the limbs of Peninnah’s vessel were deep into the snow. For shame that, unlike the considerably less powerful Castiel, Peninnah was not capable of freeing herself with anything cleverer than trying to brute-force her way with her considerable might through the Enochian sigils that held her down—considerable might at least when it came to the Erelim ranks, for Lucifer was an archangel and they were on a class of their own. Her vessel was well-favoured enough, a dark-haired Quechuan teenager with brown streaks in her hair, probably drawn into saying yes by Peninnah’s promises of turning her into the female the human had been meant to be.

 _Castiel would’ve found a way out by now_.

Lucifer knew this because Castiel had already done so. Lucifer, in fact, wished that Peninnah would escape.

YOU’RE NOT GETTING AWAY WITH THIS.

The look she directed at him was all spite. The lower wings brushed against the sigils under the snow. The sigils glowed in the upper planes because they were being fed by Lucifer’s power. It was not a gesture of defiance, however. When she had spoken to him, it had been as an statement of fact, which nagged at Lucifer. His siblings could not believe Michael could lose against him.

IT SEEMS I AM, he spoke casually. Peninnah’s four wings seemed to close around her vessel; she had understood what Lucifer had conveyed to her, not just about her current situation, but about everything regarding the war she and Lucifer were involved in.

The effort to hold her wings up was showing, her upper wings quivered and outstretched in despair; she had tried to raise them in that instinctual way that conveyed her displeasure, way above her vessel’s shoulder blades, but she was unable to do so. To a human, in Peninnah’s sides there were inexplicable clefts in the snow all the way to the ground, but those were the places in which her wings were. Usually, the wings, ethereal as they were, would not disturb the snow and would just rest above it, but now Peninnah was pumping so much Grace into them to try to use her lower wings as leverage to stand, that the wings’ invisible presence was having a tangible effect in the lower plane. The Enochian sigils bore down on her to a degree that her arms were shaking from trying to keep her vessel’s torso from stamping against the hardened ground. Peninnah’s wings were four lovely appendages of green feathers patterned with stripes of khaki and dark yellow, the outer edges of the wings looked as if they had been sprinkled in metallic orange that shone when the light got caught in the small metal stains.

I DON’T WISH TO DO THIS, SISTER, Lucifer sighed.

The hateful glare directed by the frightened angel at his feet with her true sight told Lucifer his sister saw him as a monster; the point of view the rest of archangels had probably taken care of indoctrinating the little ones in. Although, Lucifer had to admit Peninnah’s fear was delicious, even if not because of the despicable reasons his archangel siblings would accuse him of.

 _At least someone is showing the right reaction_.

It was all-too-easy to forget that Castiel’s penchant for taunting Lucifer and trying to outsmart him—and, most infuriating of all, sometimes succeeding—was just **that** , a quirk of the twisted little seraph. Perhaps now that Lucifer had tagged him, Castiel would become less of a headache as it would get considerable easier to either convince him or kill him… Whatever became more convenient over time. Lucifer had to admit Castiel had become several notches more intriguing after the young seraph had openly defied him in Kentucky and when the rebel had failed to demostrate fear on the banks of the Douro—however upset Castiel might have been at the time.

Peninnah once again flared her Grace—bitter, albeit not off-putting, with the sound of clouds in it—managing to achieve a kneeling position this time, and even kept her wings level with her head.

 _Such a strong sister_.

Peninnah, and her now deceased squad, had become too much of a thorn for his demons in Xinjiang, thus, after instructing his demons on the best way to try to get rid of the menace, Lucifer himself had come. Angels were remarkably resilient; short of Alistair or Lucifer, captured angels were _difficult_ during interrogation. Heaven took care with the training of every soldier. And Lucifer was not for the senseless breaking in of a sister.

Lucifer would make her death quick, his final mercy to her. Peninnah closed her eyes, true ones and vessel’s both, as Lucifer raised his vessel’s hand. Peninnah bowed her head, accepting her brother’s judgement. Lucifer could appreciate having a certain dignity in death; it seemed like Peninnah did, too. Her vessel’s long hair slid down its shoulders, a messy curtain that obscured the embroidered cloth hiding the Adam’s apple. Lucifer cracked his vessel’s fingers. Thus Peninnah’s vessel exploded, as her Grace burned to nothing in a terrified last shriek. Peninnah’s true voice had been nothing much. Aesthetic merit aside, her voice had been angelic and that meant it carried a certain power; the demons in the town Lucifer was in had been extremely pained during their conversation, afterwards, they started writhing when Peninnah cried out her death. Her death, of course, resulted in yet more blood sprayed over the already caked blood in his vessel’s clothes, the little red droplets looked like rubies embedded into the snow, which made a tragic faïence in appearance.

Lucifer’s wings flanked his body, his mood, subdued. Even his vessel’s steps seemed somber, somehow. Lucifer had never enjoyed killing his brethren.

 _Alas, such is the tragedy of war_.

The immense majority of demons—weak, stupid things—were no company at all. And this was not like the last rebellion, where he had scores of his brothers and sisters to fight with, to die for him… to be by Lucifer’s side. Lucifer idly wondered how many of his brethren would he have to kill, and how many, like Gabriel, had died over the thousands of years Lucifer had not been in Heaven.

Lucifer walked back towards the town.

A human would say the town was a prime example of the third world, if with a certain redeeming picturesque quality to it, with its simple wood buildings that had high thatched roofs atop them, covered by heavy snow. Plots of lands with hay bales on them were marked by rustic fences and rickety dead trees in some places. The roads criss-crossing the small town were of red gravel, road salt ubiquitous and used in an insufficient quantity that resulted in mud patches and iced puddles. Down the road, towards the closest government enclave, a veritable forest of bare trees with some evergreens dotted here and there stretched before the town.

‘Is there anything else that requires my attention?’, asked Lucifer to a demon to his side.

The demon was possessing a middle-aged, pale Han woman. The woman had seemed to have had a preference for disfiguring her rather average face with too much make-up, with bold clothes better suited to a more tropical weather. It was almost comical that a demon as powerful as Miefa would choose such a strange vessel in a backless dress and high heels. Miefa bowed deeply.

‘No’.

‘Then, get back to bringing here the rest of the Keres, wherever they may be hanging about’. Lucifer ignored Miefa’s obeisances. ‘War has not send any more allies, has he?’

‘No, I’m afraid that’s not the case’. Lucifer accepted this answer with no other comments, which prompted the demon to speak of other matters. ‘What about the town?’

‘Ah, yes’. Lucifer, purposefully, turned his vessel to watch the humans who were alive and cowering in their houses, praying furiously for a Father who did not care about them at all, some calling upon local shamanic spirits that would not protect them at all. ‘Kill them all’.

A figure slid into the lower plane before him. While her visage was fair, countless sharp teeth protuberated from her lips. Her eyes were muddy brown, her dark brown hair was braided; all a great contrast to her grey skin. Rags clung to her fame, both her feet and hands had long, black claws growing as nails would. Miefa briefly looked at the new arrival, before the demon turned back its whole attention to its Lord. The Keres were an odd bunch, since they did not follow Lucifer _per se_ , they followed The War. Should The War had been alligned with Heaven, then that is the side the Keres would have picked by virtue of associating with The War. This made them slightly duplicitous, but whatever plans they were spinning on their own were offset by how useful they were to Lucifer.

‘The Chinese government might grow suspicious. Wouldn’t that be an inconvenience?’

Lucifer’s vessel levelled a look at the demon. Had it not been for the fact Miefa was already rising up to comply with its orders, he would have exacted a nasty punishment on it.

‘I’m sure the humans will find a suitable explanation. After all, the ethnic tensions between Uyghur and Han have been ramping up in the last few months, haven’t they?’, Lucifer stated while his vessel motioned at the ker.

The more Lucifer could egg on the humans to destroy themselves, the less the possibility of Heaven poking its nose where it was not wanted. Or it caused a misdirection that would benefit him. Or both.

‘Of course’, Stygere agreed, baring her pointed, long teeth. The teeth seemed to go up her pallate and down her throat. ‘There’s just so much _hate_ to exploit’. Her aura seemed to darken, almost as if rotten blood had seeped into the air. ‘Stoking the flames shall be no problem’.

Soon, there were screams all around them, bodies were dragged about town leaving literal trails of tears behind them crystallised over the snow from all the inhabitants in equal measure, save for those spared directly on orders of Stygere. The ker promptly fashioned a human mob out of the survivors, enthralled under her influence, who went on to sack the local government offices, forgetting the rest of their now dead fellows on the road. Of course, once they arrived to the administrative enclave, they would be slaughtered by more demons. The town seemed to be drenched in red all of a sudden; meat and insides blemished the once pristine alleys, glistening against the snow. His Grace gladdened now that the pests had had a fitting ending.

And Lucifer, surrounded by worshipful demons and aided by a disloyal goddess, was alone.

.  
o*°o·o°*o·O·o*°o·o°*o  
.

Lucifer looked with distaste at the garish insides of the human establishment for engorgement. Indeed, the mortals had an horrid way of seeing the world, for the insides were warm and flesh-coloured like the insides of a living maw. Fitting, Lucifer imagined, for an establishment dedicated to stuffing the humans’ bellies with sugared drinks and mediocre food. Even the name—Biggerson’s—had been adequately chosen. The people inside were pointedly ignoring all of Lucifer, both his vessel’s creepy smile and its dirty clothes; instead, they were eating with gusto.

‘Do you like your accommodations?’

The old man, the vessel, looked at Lucifer, while he stuffed chips in his mouth. The greasiest, most disgusting—by human standards—fried chips the server could have found were inside of a dripping bag. A wad of cash later and she had shut her mouth. Lucifer was slightly impatient to be done with formalities. There was a tingling in his Grace he wanted to address.

‘Yes. There’s much to consume’.

Either Belial, Bat-Azazel or Beleth had chosen this town on his orders, so he had The Famine carted here. It would make a fine centre of operations for disruption, since the horseman liked it. It was a college town full of young, aspiring people with so many desires, hunger in all its forms: greed, lusts of all kinds. The Famine could keep himself reasonably entertained.

‘The towns on the list’, towns where Lucifer knew some vessel lines resided whose angels Lucifer was fairly sure had not been deployed by Heaven yet, ‘will be wiped out’.

‘Excellent’. Lucifer turned to the demon handlers of The Famine. ‘Don’t let the supply lines be broken. I shall be… **displeased** if that happens’. Lucifer thought about that for a bit. ‘Better, yet—you’ll be the food in times of skinny cows’.

The demons withered under Lucifer’s sight, but kept their mouths shut. Then, Lucifer’s vessel smiled at them, his Grace making a halo around it, and the demons looked at him breathless, wings and all. This way the demons would strive their hardest. Why employ the stick if the carrot suffices?

‘You could have chosen a classier joint, Famine’.

Some humans were capable of passable taste, after all.

‘On the contrary! “All you can eat”, an epicenter of gluttony. People come here willingly to fatten themselves up, then regret it. But they keep crawling back, enslaved by their stomachs. There is no better place than this’.

‘The office is clean’, one suited demon intervened in the lull of the conversation.

The Famine had realised that having his vessel out made him stand out too much, so he decided he would be operating from the manager’s office.

‘Fry them up’, dismissed The Famine.

‘Uh, “them”?’, asked another demon.

‘The employees! It’s been too long since I last had human flesh. That would make a nice meal, yes, perhaps with some garnish…? No, better to enjoy it as is. It would be excellent if you could toss a child in the pot, too. I find I’m craving some delicate flesh after having eaten so many souls’.

‘Have fun’.

The Famine looked at the fries in his hand.

‘I intend to. You too have fun in your little escapade’.

‘Escapade? Have you eaten something rotten?’

‘I don’t know or care what you are doing. But there is one thing I know all about, Morningstar, and it’s hunger’. He glanced all around him. ‘I make it my trade’.

Lucifer always knew the horsemen were not the most… stable of beings, but he was seriously starting to doubt the sanity of The Famine. Some humans had left the restaurant, believing they had been satiated enough. In time, the town would descend into chaos. The new set of humans fattening themselves up for The Famine had arrived, engrossed so much with eating that they did not notice when Lucifer disappeared right in the middle of the restaurant.

Lucifer had not intended to fly after that errand, but Castiel had been staying for an unusually long period of time in a certain location. Judging by the strength of the tingling, Castiel’s location had to be close enough. As a matter of fact, Castiel had been staying, for increasingly longer period of times, in certain places that seemed to be picked at random— _seemed_ was a key word here. When Lucifer arrived to Mongolia, he pondered over Castiel’s choice. More than San Pedro de la Roca, the steppe had been picked with a lot more care and deliberation, for nothing other than open spaces were in each of Castiel’s sides; wild grounds inert of magics. Castiel had seen Lucifer before he even touched ground; Lucifer’s wings were the light against which the night faded. Curiously, Castiel still held his ground, he just kept a close eye on Lucifer, looking out in preparation for the moment when Castiel would consider he had to retreat.

Like their prior encounter, Castiel stood expectant with fully spread wings over the plains at the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar. The wings formed a circle around him, the faint shimmer in Castiel’s wings lit them up delicately in the dark. Lucifer decided to stop tarrying—Castiel clearly was expecting him, why not land?

Castiel tilted his vessel’s head when Lucifer landed before him. Castiel’s self-doubt was evident in the ambience, probably wondering if waiting here had been a good idea—in Lucifer’s opinion, it was a very bad idea coming from Castiel that had the added benefit of being interesting to Lucifer. Neither said anything.

On the distance, the city shone at night through the thick fogue of pollution, while the small gers that sprawled from the urban centre were only visible by virtue of their white, round roofs, and because of the small lanterns that hung outside to guide lost souls home in the winter night.

After a good while standing, Lucifer decided to start the conversation.

‘I know what you’re doing’.

Even in the modern era, the Mongols were still a fairly pastoral people. Lucifer did not want any pesky humans wandering in their conversation after mulling over what made their ears hurt, so he refrained from using his true voice.

‘Is that so?’

‘You’re trying to figure out the range of the spell and the time it takes for me to get annoyed enough to go to you’.

 _Now you’re angry. Very cute_ , Lucifer thought in a sardonic fashion.

‘Some other time I’d almost think it was hero-worship, with you standing around waiting patiently for me to come. Is it a crush?’

‘I think most angels have crushed on you at some point’, Castiel told him bluntly, in a tone that clearly implied Lucifer was either so vain he needed it stated again, or an unbelievably huge idiot for needing it to be spelled out. ‘I find it more perplexing that you have, in fact, come and haven’t made any attempts to kill me so far’.

‘Rhetoric questions, Castiel’.

‘Inane blabber’.

‘I find it even more puzzling that you’d insist on reminding me to kill you, since you seem very attached to your pitiable life. I think that qualifies as some sort of suicide attempt’.

‘Far be it from me to take actions that might **endanger** my life’, Castiel commented in a weary tone. ‘Besides, it’s not like you need the reminder’.

Lucifer was entertained by this, which only caused Castiel’s Grace to brim unhappily. Castiel had chosen to allign with doomed humanity, after all, so Lucifer figured that Castiel’s self-preservation instinct was under-developed, _at best_.

‘Smiting you would make my life considerably more boring’. To his internal surprise, Lucifer found himself frankly agreeing with that statement. ‘I still think you should take my mercy’.

A humanised Castiel would be some sort of soulless abomination.

‘You can keep your mercy to yourself’.

‘So you’d prefer the suffering of a short human life than be relieved of your burdens?’

Castiel perplexed Lucifer.

‘I never was one for the easy way out, I suppose’. Before Lucifer could retort, Castiel cut him off. ‘You’ve been most helpful, brother. Good night’.

Castiel’s vessel nodded in acknowledgement and Castiel flew off. Lucifer’s mind was divided in three: to follow Castiel and be left into the dust, smite him from a distance, or just ignore his departure. Given that the archangel did not like loosing, he took the last alternative, and walked eastwards a couple of miles to the forests of Bogd Khan Uul, where it must have been blissfully quiet in the dead of winter, walking amongst the dead grass and the bare rocks.

The evergreens looked black in the dark, the mountain’s gentle slopes made an illusion of ever bigger trees. The only sound that rang through the night was from afar; the slow waters of the Tuul rumbled under the ice sheets that covered it. It was, perhaps, too quiet for once, even for Lucifer’s tastes.

Company would have been appreciated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This time my notes were short-ish, but you’re welcome to read the annotated version of this chapter [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12188821/9/The-Devil-Falls%0A), like always.
> 
> This are all the chapters I have uploaded so far to FFNet. Consider this your early Christmas gift :)


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